Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

Daniel Snuts · Aug 17, 2022

Now that Operation: Coil Dies has been successful (the word tastes bitter), you have administrative tasks you must attend to. You set the girl down. She still does not speak or meet your gaze, but she shows no desire to wander off either, so you ignore her and pull out your phone.

You call Victor, who had been peering at the empty desk of PRT Director Thomas Calvert through a sniper scope, and tell him to stand down ("turnabout is fair play," Victor had noted when you tasked him with this outrageous breach of the unwritten rules).

You call Aisha, who had been lurking in Thomas Calvert's private residence, and tell her to stand down.

"I got him, boss!" she says excitedly.

"You got his body double," you explain, raining on her parade (unlike Victor, Aisha didn't even notice that you were asking her to violate a taboo).

You call Purity, confirm that she reduced Coil's backup base/primary fallback point to rubble, and tell her to stand down.

You call Alec, who staffed Coil's secondary fallback point entirely with body-jacked mercenaries, and tell him to stand down.

You call Hookwolf, confirm that he gained entry to the secret tertiary fallback point that Coil was completely sure no one else knew about and sliced everyone inside to ribbons, and tell him to stand down.

You call Krieg, who was in charge of the main base assault, and verify that everyone got out before it blew. And that the Travelers were allowed to leave unmolested.

"You were not kidding about the giant monster," he says. You confirm that no, you were not. That's why a peaceful resolution was engineered.

You end up really appreciating everything Ops normally do for you. Or you would, if they hadn't been so heavily infiltrated that you had to take over their job completely.

(None of it helped, and you'll never know which of your precautions got him in the other timeline)

It wouldn't do to say it out loud, but Low Key has really blossomed since her injury. All too often capes focus too much on their powers, and neglect mundane skills.

Easy for me to say, of course. But this girl has the makings of a truly great manipulator. I'm tempted to ask her if I can skim some off the top.

"Oh," Scalper says. "Looks like it's over. I'll be taking my leave, then. No hard feelings, right?" Then his face goes blank for a second, before twisting in rage. "You little shit!" he screams. "When I find you, I'm going to pluck out your eyes and make you eat them! I'll-"

His words cut off abruptly when he brings his gun to his head and pulls the trigger.

"No hard feelings, right?" my mouth says.

"None whatsoever, sir!" I reply instantly.

Fuck! Of course I only got the body double, and the Boss got the real guy. I know I'm nowhere near her level, but I really thought I managed to avenge my brother just now.

I kick the wall in frustration. Great, now I've been upstaged, and my foot hurts.

You turn to look at the girl you saved. "Now what am I supposed to do with you?" you say, half asking her and half musing to yourself. The fate of Coil's pet precog hadn't featured into your plans at all.

The girl points to where she's scratched another message into the wall with a rock while you were busy.

HAVE INFO
WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE
TRADE

Don't talk and the Monster won't get my soul. Don't talk, and 87.54918% chance the Monster won't get my soul. 86.97363% chance. Don't talk. 86.13474% chance. No body language. 88.44529% chance the Monster won't get my soul.

"No freebies for the rescue, huh." She's scratching another message before you finish speaking. But it's not as if you're going to turn down the deal or anything. She reportedly can't lie about the future without damaging her own power, so if she says it will save your life you're hardly in a position to haggle.

FREE INFO
HOW TO BECOME DRAGON
GET DRAGON CLOTHES
RETURN AT 9

Damn. Wearing a new face and costume for this operation clearly did not help at all. Is there anything she doesn't know about you? Depends on what you do in the future, you guess.

You call Aisha again. "Do you still have your paints?" you ask. She's confused for a moment, then delighted.

---

You really wish you had an invisibility power right about now. Or at least that you could throw on a jacket without smudging the dragons.

But you manage to make it back to the meeting point without causing a public outcry, where the precog is waiting for you.

She's wearing jeans, and a blue denim jacket over a white t-shirt. Her mask is what you can only call a blue denim balaclava. It's clearly made from the seat of her pants (a different pair than the one she's wearing), with the leg holes sewn up. The zipper goes up the back of her head, and it's belted around her neck.

It looks odd, to say the least, but as a veteran costume maker you approve of the approach. She has a clear theme going, but only had to do a single piece of tailoring. Shame about the sneakers. As with business suits, so with cape suits: A snob can tell a poseur by the footwear (or so you hear, you don't know shit about expensive shoes).

"Couldn't find blue denim shoes, huh?"

Unsurprisingly, she doesn't respond. Instead she hands you a sheet of paper, detailing her plan for tonight in neat pencil handwriting. So that's how your dragon power works? You literally never would have guessed. And she's certainly ambitious, isn't she? Well, she's a Thinker powerful enough to give you the odds of each individual step of the plan down to seven significant digits, she deserves to be.

You stop reading when she steps into your personal space, her hand reaching up as if she was about to grab you by the neck. What- oh, there's a small pile of white powder on the web of her thumb. The missing part of your Double D costume. You take step back and hold up your hand.

"Certain levels of verisimilitude are not for sale at any price," you say firmly. Aisha's mom is not a role model.

She shrugs and brushes the powder to the ground, before handing you another sheet of paper. It's identical, except two of the odds have gone down by 5% or so.

"You Thinkers are all the same," you say. Even the creepy mute ones can't resist showing off.

---

Gaining entry to a Merchant party is as easy as making it there without being mugged. Which would normally be quite the obstacle, but no one is feeling brave enough to bother two obvious capes, one of whom famously beat up Lung. A fair number of people start following you at a distance, though, just to see what you'll do this time.

The party itself is just an open space that's mostly clear of rubble, with fires and loudspeakers (each one playing a different song) scattered randomly about the place. Most partygoers give way for you as you walk towards the center of the field, but some are too strung out to notice anything going on around them and must be navigated around, while others have, through a variety of chemical means, become braver and/or friendlier than the muggers outside.

They are, on the whole, happy to see you. And why wouldn't they be? Double D is a local celebrity, for all that she has never appeared in public since that first time. You endure people slapping you on the back and smudging your dragons - you'd reprimand them, but the volume of the music means that there are functionally no options between silent stoicism and screaming at the top of your lungs. But when a hand strays towards your front you summon your knife and charge it with power.

You don't even have to cut anyone - the sudden burst of golden light sends everyone staggering back in alarm, crying out and covering their eyes. You dismiss it again before anyone can identify the source of it as something that really ought to belong to Low Key, and continue onwards.

In the middle of the party you find Skidmark lounging on a throne of sorts - a ratty couch that has been half-heartedly spray-painted gold. In his left hand he holds a pipe that you're fairly sure does not contain tobacco, while his right hand is stuffed down the front of Squealer's pants. Charming.

He says something when he notices you, but you can't hear a word of it. A look of irritation crosses his face. "Turn it down!" he screams. "Turn it the fuck down, you gibbering assmonkeys!" He jumps up from the couch and waves his hands about and keeps screaming until people get the message, and the nearest loudspeakers go silent. Squealer groggily gets up from the couch and tries to get him to put his hand back in her pants, but he pushes her away and turns to you.

"Well!" he says in the relative silence. "What brings you fine frails to my little swarray?"

"Hi!" you say cheerfully. "I'm a dragon!" You point at denim-girl. "She's your new boss."

Squealer takes a step back, alarmed. Skidmark, on the other hand, takes a step forward and starts describing what he's going to do to both of you for your presumption. Things that are not at all appropriate when applied to a prepubescent girl. Well, she did note that there was a 78.65441% chance that this would end in violence.

You turn to Dinah.

Just this once. Then never speak again, or the Monster At The End Of The World gets my soul.

"Deal with them, and I'll tell you," she says, and holds out her hand.

You clasp it, and seal your pact. There is golden light, followed by violence.

---

♦Topic: Double D is back!
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Posted by: AstralDeth (Veteran member)
Posted on Jun 2, 2011

(Showing Page 3 of 9)

► Legalize Brownies
Replied on June 2, 2011:
an then mush rolls up an hes like slurpin up shiz all over an he gets 1 of teh bonfires an 1 of teh spreakers an hes like surprise muthafocka an punches her rite in teh snoofle wif a fist thats on fire while blastin sick beets from his hed! was ill af fam

► will_eat_anything
Replied on June 2, 2011:
I think I got most of that. So she lost the fight?

► Unfortunate Sobriety
Replied on June 2, 2011:
Nah mang that shit just pissed her off lol. Riperino in piecerinos Mush.

► will_eat_anything
Replied on June 2, 2011:
Wait, she *killed* him?

► Legalize Brownies
Replied on June 2, 2011:
hes jus joshin ya fam mush is fine

► Unfortunate Sobriety
Replied on June 2, 2011:
I dunno mang that was alot of blood tho

► long_distance_chef
Replied on June 2, 2011:
So less than 2 months after Lung is arrested, we get *another* gang led by a giant rage dragon? Just Brockton Bay things.

► Legalize Brownies
Replied on June 2, 2011:
teh new boss is trousers

► Veteran Member (Not a veteran member)
Replied on June 2, 2011:
Does that mean good or bad?

► Unfortunate Sobriety
Replied on June 2, 2011:
Nah mang u dun geddit trousers is the new boss lol

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 , 8, 9

===

Lacking parents, Dinah instead moves to secure a lifetime supply of candy.

Daniel Snuts · Aug 18, 2022

You look at the piece of paper Trousers gave you in exchange for her new gang. There's a single word written on.

CUFF

You have no idea what that means. But apparently the information will save your life at some point in the future, because fucking Thinkers.

An internet search does not turn up anything beyond the obvious. You guess you'll just... carry around a pair of handcuffs wherever you go now? And a set of the appropriate lockpicks. And a pair of tasteful cufflinks, because why the hell not? Maybe they'll save your life when... you're disguised as a man and somehow end up at a formal dinner with Accord present, or something. Who the fuck even knows?

---

The Travelers are holed up in Lisa's warlord lair - that much, at least, went according to plan. One of Coil's mercenaries lets you in.

"We were told to expect you," he says. "Though, we haven't heard from the boss at all since then. Do you know if-"

You don't know which boss he's referring to, but the answer is the same either way. "Tattletale and Coil are both dead," you say.

To your surprise, he reacts to this piece of news by inclining his head and tracing the sign of the cross. "May they rest in peace," he says softly. Then he looks up, and is all business again. "Will you be taking over the base? I would be willing to stay on under the same terms..."

You shake your head. "You'd have to take that up with the Travelers. Speaking of..."

"Of course, ma'am."

You look around as he guides you to the Travelers' quarters. The lair looks to be of recent construction, with a lot more exposed concrete than you'd normally look for in a home. But it's dry and intact and it has electricity, which is more than you can say for a lot of the city even now.

Your reception from the Travelers themselves consists of Sundancer walking up to you and slapping you in the face.

"That's for what you did to Luke," she announces (Luke himself is nowhere to be seen).

"I'd do the same, if I could reach that high," a girl in a wheelchair says. Genesis, clearly, because she then manifests a gangly monster with seven hands, all of which slap you in the face.

You stand there and take it, because the alternative is getting in a fight with Sundancer. Also you kind of deserve it, you guess.

"If you're quite finished," Trickster drawls. "Quicksilver has a job to do."

The slapping-monster dissipates, and Genesis turns around and rolls off with a huff.

"Thanks," you say.

"They all hate you," Trickster says simply. "I'm willing to give you a chance, but if you can't help her you might not be walking out of here. Just saying."

You make some token protests at his blatant threats - not because you mind, but to have enough of a conversation for soul's price to trigger.

Trickster wants Noelle to be cured.

Ka-ching.

You arrive at a door which he opens a crack. You can hear heavy breathing from within. Trickster's tone is completely different when he speaks again. "Noelle?" he asks softly. "Quicksilver is here." There's no response. "Remember how she was coming to help you?" No response. "Are you ready to meet her?"

After a long silence, during which trickster grows increasingly uneasy, he speaks again. "Noelle-"

"She can enter," a female voice comes from within.

"Go on," Trickster says, motioning you ahead. "Whatever you do, don't touch her. Don't make any sudden movements or loud noises. Do whatever she says - unless she asks you to touch her. Then you run away." You're reminded of Faultline taking you to see Labyrinth, though you take note of how he doesn't bother to threaten you anymore, just warn you.

Inside is a garage area, which has been repurposed as a cozy windowless Noelle-holding facility. Not because they don't want to be around her, but because they're the only doors she can fit through. Although they also don't want to be around her, because they're afraid she might go crazy and attack them (and also, as you discover as soon as you enter, because of the smell).

You've had Noelle described to you, which only somewhat prepares you for encountering her in person. She is the upper half of a reasonably attractive teenage girl, connected to... something less attractive. The words 'nightmarish amalgam' spring to mind. A hill of flesh with three giant mouths (responsible for the heavy breathing) and dozens of eyes both human and non-. It paces back and forth on a combination of hoofed feet and human fingers the size of legs, though it grows still when you enter.

"I disgust you, don't I?" Noelle asks.

You take a deep breath before answering. "Don't worry, that's what we're here to fix," you say, trying not to sound too insincerely cheerful. "Now, tell me about yourself."

"I don't really want to talk about... this." She gestures towards her lower half.

"Tell me about your life before, then."

"I... don't want to talk about that either."

"You're going to have to, if you want to get better."

Noelle swallows heavily. "Okay. Krouse, will you hold my hand?"

Trickster takes a step back. "Noelle, you know you can't-"

"Maybe it won't be so bad this time?"

"I'm sorry," Trickster says. Then he runs away, because Noelle asked him to touch her.

You retreat into a corner as Noelle starts to chase after him, before regaining control of herself. Her human half slumps in defeat.

"Will you tell him I'm sorry?" she asks. "I, I know the monster is lying when it says it would be fine if I touched him, but..."

"You can tell him yourself," you say.

Noelle shakes her head. "He won't come back for a long time now."

"You can tell him yourself once you're better. Which will be very soon."

"Okay." Noelle takes a deep breath, and start talking about herself.

---

Her name is Noelle Meinhardt, and her life sucks. She spends hours going into detail how and why, as you prod her for every detail she can remember. At one point a mercenary shows up to feed her. You watch with mildly disgusted fascination (and your sorcerer's sight safely off) as her lower half gobbles down an entire pig carcass, and another hoof grows out beneath her. So, the human parts are from people she's eaten? That's unreassuring to know.

Noelle wants to be cured. Obviously.

"Can you fix me?" Noelle asks once her narration is finally done.

"Yes. But I'm going to have to touch you."

"No!"

"Yes. Just one touch, and it'll all be over." Paradoxically, it's the giant monster that retreats into the corner, as you advance on it.

"You don't understand! They always come out wrong, and I can't-" Her words cut off as you touch her, and activate Flechette's power. Not to destroy, but to change.

The giant monster vanishes, and two girls appear in its place - one of them wearing clothes, the other naked. The first is Noelle, but with both halves made of human girl. The other is you.

She is already lunging for you as she appears, her lips peeled back in a smile that all hunger and malevolent glee (are her canines longer than they should be?).

"No, stop!" Noelle shouts, but it's too late. Before you can properly process what is happening, the other Taylor has touched you back.

Nothing happens. Her face falls.

"No!" she screams. "No no no no!" She slumps to her knees, whimpering. "Why does everything have to turn into ashes?"

You study your evil clone - for that is obviously what she is. That's what happens when you touch Noelle. Her skin is almost inhumanly pale, but otherwise she looks just like you. Or rather she looks like you would, if you didn't look like Quicksilver right now. She looks like Taylor Hebert. When you turn sorcerer's sight on, you can see that she has done the same. But she isn't using graceful crane stance.

"Let me guess," you say. "You're a clone of me, the girl whose only power is sorcerer's sight."

"Yes," Evil Taylor says. She looks up at you, glaring defiantly, but at the same time baring her throat. "Go on, then. End it."

"End it? We've not even started yet, newest minion."

Evil Taylor seems taken aback by your words, which only goes to show that the cloning process isn't perfect. "You... realize that my only purpose in life is to destroy everything you hold dear and watch you die screaming, right?"

Evil Taylor wants to destroy everything you hold dear and watch you die screaming.

Huh. That's almost word for word Sophia's new soul price.

"So it says on the tin," you agree. "But I won't kill you as long as you don't betray me." You hold out your hand to shake. "Servitude or death?"

She actually hesitates in front of that choice. "Servitude," she says finally, and takes your hand.

Golden light explodes out from you as you seal the pact, though you don't elect to become a dragon. Good thing Trousers explained how that works. What you didn't expect was the black anti-light exploding out from her in an equal but opposite reaction. Light and darkness clash against each other and boil around your clasped hands, and you feel the bargain being twice sealed.

Wait, you could seal pacts all along? And because of that, your dumb brain created a dragon power that only works for pact-sealing people? Trousers didn't mention that. Which, you suppose, means that you're not going to explain it to her in the future.

In the wake of your deal, the walls in your half of the room have been bleached as if they had been exposed to the sun for years on end, while those in her half are stained and corroded.

"What is even going on?" Noelle demands, looking back and forth between you.

"You don't need to know that. In fact, you shouldn't tell anyone about the clone at all."

"Okay."

"Oh, and give her your pants." Noelle is wearing pants, because of course a Noelle who didn't have her power would wear pants around the house. But you don't need the others asking just how Quicksilver fixing a malfunctioning power caused clothing to appear out of the aether.

Luckily the rest of her wardrobe (a couple of t-shirts in a laundry hamper) was on your side of the room, so the clothes are only faded, not destroyed. You won't have to exfiltrate a half-naked clone. For once your true form is good for something, as its complete lack of womanly curves or muscle definition lets your clone fit into a former anorectic's clothing without issue. Hmph.

"Stay here while I finish things up," you tell Evil Taylor. Then open the door a crack and stick your head outside. "Hey!"

"What?" Trickster startles awake from where he'd been dozing off against the wall. "What's wrong?"

"Noelle needs to borrow some pants. You know, unless you're into having your girlfriend display her charms to the world."

"You mean-" Trickster lunges forward and tries to barge through the door. You draw back and shut it in his face.

"Pants first!" You shout through the door.

"Right." you hear from the other side. "Mars! Noelle needs to borrow your clothes!"

---

You trail behind a (re-)clothed Noelle as she rushes out to hug her teammates. As Aisha would put it: It's all heartwarming and shit. A good 5/6ths of the Travelers are crying tears of joy. Ballistic may or may not be a bit misty-eyed as well, but he's steadfastly refusing to even turn in your direction, so you can't tell. As if your awkward outsider status needed any reinforcement right now.

Then Noelle pushes Trickster away, breaking the hug. "It's happening again," she says, her face pale.

"What?" Trickster asks. "Wh-"

"Don't touch me!" Noelle cries, backing away from him. "I can feel it happening again!"

Trickster whirls around to face you. "I though you were going to fix her!"

"I thought I did!" you protest. "She looked fixed to me."

"The monster is still there," Noelle mutters to herself, curled up in a corner while the others stand uncertainly around her - wanting to comfort her, but getting yelled at whenever they approach.

Trickster is the odd man out, too busy hurling threats and imprecations at you to hover ineffectively around his girlfriend, but her next words cause him to forget all about you.

"Kill me," Noelle says.

"Wha-" "Noelle!" "You can't-"

"Please! I can't go through that again!" She fixes Sundancer with a stare. "Before the monster gets too strong, while I'm still in control. Burn me to ashes so it can't regenerate."

"I- I can't." Sundancer chokes out.

"Noelle, no," Trickster says. "It, it didn't work completely, but you're better now. We can keep looking for a solution, and Quicksilver can do her thing again if it gets too bad-"

"If it gets bad?" Noelle demands. "If it gets bad!? I killed and ate forty people the last time it got bad!"

Sundancer, Genesis and the nameless Changer all recoil at this, then turn to look at Trickster.

"You said-" Genesis begins.

"He lied!" Noelle shouts. "He lied to protect me! Please, Mars. If you have any love for me at all. Help me. Keep me from hurting anyone else."

Sundancer is shaking her head, tears streaming down her face. But she holds up her hands, and flashes of solar plasma start appearing between them. The others back away from her.

"No," Trickster says. "Don't you dare, Mars." He tries to approach her, but the sheer heat of the miniature sun forming in front of her sends him staggering back.

"I'm sorry," Sundancer whispers. Once the sun has grown to be the size of a person, she sends it flying towards Noelle.

Just before it hits her, she vanishes and Ballistic appears in her place. He dies before he can even cry out.

"Krouse!" Noelle shouts from where Ballistic just stood.

Sundancer screams, a wordless noise of rage and pain, and sends the sun careening towards Trickster. Genesis starts to manifest another monster.

You, on the other hand, run the fuck away. As much as you'd like to know how it's all going to turn out, this is an excellent time to not be in Trickster's line of sight.

"We're leaving!" you shout at your clone as you burst into the garage. You keep running right across it and slap the 'door open' button. When that has no effect, you channel the charm of unmaking into the door itself. There's a time for subtlety and scrupulously remaining within the powerset of your current persona, and that time is not now. The fold-up door collapses into a neat pile of metal slats, which you leap over.

Evil Taylor keeps pace with you as you sprint away - which is weird, now that you think about it. She gets the benefit of the exercise you've been getting over the last couple of weeks, but not the powers?

Behind you the entire building vanishes, consumed from within by a growing sun.

===

Of course the twisted clone of Taylor's eclipse caste solar is a moonshadow caste abyssal.

If you're not familiar with Exalted and the above statement means nothing to you, don't worry about it. The pale skin and elongated canines mean exactly what a naive observer would take them to mean: She's basically a vampire. But because she draws power from a parahuman shard just like regular Taylor and doesn't have to worry about essence pools, she's not an obligate haemovore.

Pattern Spider Touch can't really be used to modify a single aspect of a person as such. On application, it rewrites them into some other person. Changing 'a random rat' into 'a random cat' doesn't require any particular thought, but Taylor needed to know Noelle's entire life story so that the new person she created would be a properly accurate Noelle-but-without-powers. Unfortunately the new Noelle was such a realistic imitation that the shard was able to find her again and reattach itself S9000 style.

Well, either that or she replaced Noelle with a slave puppet programmed to reassure the Travelers that Quicksilver had done her job as well could be expected, and then self-terminate before they could examine her in detail. How would anyone tell the difference?

Daniel Snuts · Aug 19, 2022

"Why do this?" Evil Taylor asks as you walk along. "I could just betray our pact and accept the consequences, you know. Even if I can't kill you, I can reveal all your secrets."

"Mm-hm," you agree. "And what would happen if you did? After I killed you, I mean."

"You'd... leave town, and start over with a bunch of new identities elsewhere." She sighs. "It wouldn't be satisfying at all."

She sulks for a while before speaking up again.

"But what possible use could you have for me as a minion?"

It's sobering to see a powerless you from the outside, and realize just how suicidal you were. She's practically begging you to kill her.

"What would you do with yourself, if you were me? Which you are."

She shuts her mouth firmly, clearly not wanting to give you any good ideas if you haven't already thought of them yourself. Which you have, of course, because you're the same person.

"You're already helping," you say cheerfully. "Just us walking along like this proves that Low Key and Quicksilver couldn't possibly be the same person. But just to make sure we're seen together, you'll make a big show of hiring me to see if there's any way to get your power back."

Evil Taylor nods glumly. That was what she had been thinking too.

"We need to get you some spray tan, though. Unless you think Low Key should have a goth phase?"

"You could always let me learn shapeshifting from you."

"Hah. You're not nearly Mastered enough for that. Yet."

---

You're back in your true form, except five shades paler - which means you're basically impossible to tell apart from your clone.

Aisha looks from one of you to the other. "Not gonna give you the satisfaction," she says, crossing her arms.

"Aren't going to greet your junior minion-sister?" Evil Taylor asks, gesturing towards you. "This is my clone. She has her own hopes and dreams independent of mine, but I've enslaved her on pain of death because I'm a terrible person."

"No, she's the clone," you say. "And what she's failing to mention is that she's an evil clone, and her hopes and dreams mostly consist of torturing me to death."

"Mostly?" Aisha asks.

"She'd quite like to torture you to death first, while I'm forced to watch," Evil Taylor says. "Because we're friends." Then she frowns. "Didn't you say we were meeting someone here?" she asks.

You answer her frown with one of your own. "I did? Can't think of why."

"There's a note in your hand," she points out. "Where are those even coming from?"

You shrug. "Maybe they're from the Simurgh?"

"You think so?"

"Not really, no. Which is exactly what I would think if the Simurgh did it."

"Huh. Well, what's it say?"

"'Reveal who is clone,'" you recite. "I'm the real one. The evil clone can't shapeshift." You turn your hair blonde in demonstration.

"Yet," Evil Taylor says, but she doesn't otherwise try to confuse the issue. She must have inherited your inexplicable trust in the notes along with the rest of your thoughts and memories.

"Valid use of a note!" Aisha says emphatically. "When people start talking about torturing me to death, I bow out!"

"That's fair," Evil Taylor says.

Aisha shoots her a glare before turning to you. "Have you ever had a really great idea for a prank and then thought that no, I shouldn't, it's too much? Because you really should have."

"Says the mastermind behind Double D?"

"Fine, I'm a big fat hypocritamous! What do you even want with a crazy murderous clone-slave?"

You explain the benefits of being able to deploy two identities at the same time. Aisha seems unconvinced that it's worth the risk.

"We'll keep her chained up at night," you say placatingly. "And feel free to kill her if you suspect anything amiss. It's not as if evil clones are people."

"Fucking Duplicette," Evil Taylor mutters. Yeah, a younger, less cynical you had been pretty shocked at the Human Rights Tribunal's decision in the Duplicette case, but it's been codified into international law now: Evil clones aren't people. Geneva conventions need not apply.

---

Emptiness endowment lets you Master people in exchange for making them better. But it only works on things they've expressed discontent about.

"I wish I was better at navigating by the stars," Evil Taylor says, and you grant her wish.

"Don't learn any new powers without explicit permission," you order her in return.

The thing is, if you have someone at your mercy you can just order them to express useless discontent.

"I wish I was better at filling out tax forms," Evil Taylor says.

---

"Am I Mastered enough to learn shapeshifting now, boss?"

"Maybe once I've gotten Regent's power and used it on you."

---

You suppose it's your job to inform Lisa's next of kin, such as they are. Well, Warlord Circus can figure out what happened on her own, as her support dries up. No really, she can. You have faith in her deductive abilities. It's not like you hold a grudge against her or anything. She tried to spy on you, you secretly copied her power. As far as you're concerned, you're even. But that doesn't mean you like her either, not enough to go out of your way to help.

Warlord Rachel, on the other hand... From what you've heard she's latched on to the venerable Brockton Bay tradition of ethnic gangs, and created an ethnostate for dogs. Thing is, dogs don't pay much in the way of taxes. You should inform her that the food shipments are going to stop now that Coil is dead, so that she may adjust her foreign policy appropriately.

Which only leaves the question of how to get to her. People have been giving her territory a wide berth, because the supremacist nation of Doggonia does not tolerate unterhunden on their turf. And while your shapeshifting sufficed for infiltrating the ABB, it's limited to human forms.

She must have had some arrangement for getting supplies in, you suppose, but anyone who would know what it was is dead now. Nor can you fight your way in - you're confident that you could win against an arbitrary number of monster dogs, but you want to have a conversation with Rachel, not a fight to the death. Which is what you'd get if you hurt her dogs.

Hell, you don't even know exactly where her lair is, beyond 'roughly in the center of her territory'. You had expected Alec to be able to help you out there, but he just shrugs when you ask.

"The boss had a map. Saw it once, but why would I memorize her address? It's not like I was going to visit."

"So everyone who knew where she is is probably dead."

"Why'd you have to go and ruin a good thing anyway?" he complains. "I liked sitting around and being paid for doing nothing."

"How'd you feel about having your identity revealed to the world?" you counter.

"That would be bad," he concedes. "Yeah, that'd probably be murder-bad."

The smart thing to do would be to fly in and search from the air, because dogs can't fly (you can probably fly high enough that not even a fully-grown monster dog could reach you with a leap). But neither can Taylor Hebert, which is the only one of your identities Rachel knows. More sandbagging? More sandbagging. You'd call it the third inevitability of cape life, except as a villain you don't pay taxes.

---

You'd say you're about about halfway to your destination when you see the first dog. It's smaller than you expected, only about lion-sized. It's nearing the end of its patrol shift, you suppose, almost shrunk down to non-fearsome proportions. Or, well, you actually have no idea how organized Rachel is in here. Has she trained the dogs to guard specific areas, or does she just empower them as they show up and let nature take its course?

Of course as you're having these idle thoughts you are also scrambling up the the side of a building, because there's a lion-sized monster bearing down on you.

Well, this is why you packed a grappling hook. After a couple of practice tries you manage to get it to attach to the next roof over. After securing it on your side, all that remains is a tightrope walk above a pack of slavering mutants - because of course the first monster immediately howled for reinforcements when it looked like you were getting away.

No problem at all, in other words. No, really. Absolutely no problem whatsoever. With graceful crane stance you could tap-dance across backwards if you wanted to. You don't, though. You walk across at a sedate pace with your arms held out for balance, remaining mortal-compliant. It's not as if you're going to outrun the dogs when you have to stop and retrieve the rope after each crossing.

In this manner you penetrate deeper into dog territory, but it's only a matter of time before it stops working. Closer to her lair the dogs will be bigger, and soon enough they'll have the strength and claws to climb up after you. You'll... think of something when that happens.

Whups, better think quickly, because that's a monster dog scrambling onto the roof ahead of you. Compromising a smidgeon on the mortal-compliance, you turn on your heel and run back across your tightrope, but the dog just leaps across after you.

"Brutus?" you try. "Judas?" No reaction. You rack your brain for the names of other dogs who might remember you from your minion days as you back away across the roof. "Lucy? Inky? Socks?"

At that last name, it stops advancing on you and perks up. Just in time, because you had reached the edge of the roof.

"Socks! Remember me? I used to feed you and play with you." You remove a glove and hold your hand out for him to sniff. Hopefully-Socks accepts your offer, and carefully sniffs your hand - and then your face, and the rest of your body. You remain tensed throughout, ready to shadow-dodge away in an instant if it looks like he's going for a bite instead.

Not being completely stupid, you elected to wear a balaclava for your infiltration attempt. In a worst-case scenario you can abort the mission and use powers to get away without worrying about being recognized. That doesn't really make being nose-fondled by a giant monster not nerve-wracking, though. But in the end, the monster takes a step back and makes a huffing sound of... acceptance? He doesn't attack, at least.

"Can you take me to Rachel?" you ask. He just stares at you. Oh, right. You had gotten used to Fenrir as the standard for communicating with giant canines. Socks isn't sapient, though. Does he even know Rachel's name?

"Home?" you try instead. "Let's go home!" At that, he lets out the monster equivalent of a happy bark, and jumps off the roof. Then he turns around and looks up expectantly, waiting for you to follow.

---

"Who's this?" Rachel asks. She's talking to Socks, but you step forward and remove your balaclava, and answer in his stead.

"It's me. Taylor."

"Oh. Whaddaya want?" It's not the warmest of greetings, but it's a far sight better than what you'd have gotten if you'd come in another guise.

"Bearer of bad news, I'm afraid" you say, before stopping to wonder if you're exceeding her English levels too. "Lisa's dead," you finish simply.

"Who did it?" Rachel demands.

"Coil." You hold up your hand when she looks like she's about to call for her dogs and go on a crusade right here and now. "I killed him already."

"Good." With that, she seems to put the entire matter behind her.

"With both of them gone, you won't be getting any more support," you point out.

"I can manage on my own. Always have."

"Never thought otherwise," you say, hands held out placatingly. "Just wanted to let you know, you know."

Rachel just grunts in response. "How's Bubbles?" she asks after a moment.

Of course she'd ask that. You're stupid for not expecting it. "Dead," you say thickly, looking away. "Leviathan." Rachel doesn't say anything. You keep looking away as the silence lingers. You fully expect her to attack you for your negligence, and you're willing to give her a free shot. You deserve it.

Instead she shoves a puppy into your arms.

"Wha-"

"Therapy puppy," Rachel explains.

Oh. Okay. As long as she isn't trying to give you a replacement, you can deal. You pet the puppy.

"I lost some of mine too," she says.

---

Your mind-hands pause in their carving almost as soon as you started. "What even was her last name?" you ask.

"Wilbourn, I think," Ghost says.

"How do you spell that?"

"No idea."

You resume carving. Briefly. "I suppose a D.O.B. would be too much to ask for?"

"No shit."

You sigh, and go with your best guess. Once you're done, you let your mind-hands fade and study your work.

LISA WILBORNE
1994-2011
Smarter than you

"It's what she would have wanted," Ghost says.

The paving slab you've carved the words into should be more or less directly above where she was buried in the explosion.

"Not quite smart enough, though," Aisha says.

"Not the time, Imp."

"Oh, you think I'm being inappropriate?"

You turn around at her words, only to find that Evil Taylor (in her temporary guise as the mysterious fourth member of BITN) has pulled down her pants and is squatting to relieve herself on the street. Oh for fuck's sake, she's pissing on Lisa's grave. Because you were friends.

"That's petty, even for an evil clone."

Daniel Snuts · Aug 22, 2022

As more Master effects have suddenly become a priority, you shift your focus towards finally acquiring Alec's power. Warlord Regent has pretty much outgrown his role as the secret third-and-a-halfth member of BITN - his lair is bigger and nicer than yours, and he has more minions. But despite his grumbling he sticks to his promises, and letting you study his power was part of the deal. It's not as if it costs him anything.

Thus you task Evil Taylor with maintaining your Empire identity, leaving her to do heavy physical labor all day while you lounge in Alec's lair, posing as his slave puppet concubine as you watch him pilot his Mastered mercenaries around.

"This is Orc and Lissom," Alec introduces them.

"Mercenaries have secret identities too?" you ask.

"Callsigns, actually," Orc says.

"Though the effect is much the same, with these," Lissom says, gesturing at the face-concealing helmet of their SWAT-like uniform.

You wonder briefly if Alec got them mixed up, because the person he introduced as 'Orc' has a female voice, and 'Lissom', male. Then they take off their helmets, and your confusion clears up. No, he did not get them mixed up. Poor Orc.

Aisha is there too, because as you mentioned, Alec's lair is nicer than yours. She insisted on being the 'senior slave puppet concubine', and you agreed. It amuses her to have nominal authority over you, and you don't particularly care who waves the fan and who peels the grapes. There is one major difference between how you play your roles, though.

"I can't believe you let him actually slave puppet you," you say.

"Don't kinkshame," Aisha says, making you raise an eyebrow. Are they bumping uglies for real, too? You disapprove, but objecting would make you quite the hypocritamous yourself.

"Don't make me draw up guidelines for minion maternity leave," is all you say. Which, uh, could still be considered a wee bit hypocritical, considering your own condition. She's even younger and more irresponsible than you, though!

---

"Alright, hit me," Evil Taylor says resignedly.

You wave you finger at her like a Jedi mind-trick and hit her with Alec's power. She twitches. You don't feel any sort of connection form, though. Frowning, you do it again. Another twitch.

Her eyes go wide with realization, and she bursts out laughing. You keep hitting her with the power, causing her to twitch and hiccup and eventually fall over, but she doesn't stop laughing.

"Let me guess," she finally wheezes out from the floor, "you copied Regent's power? The guy-" she has to pause for breath again "-the guy whose only power is to make people twitch inconveniently, honest!"

You twitch her again as she collapses back into laughter, out of petty spite. You did, didn't you? What is even wrong with your brain? Alec explained it all ages ago, how every nervous system was somehow different, and so all he could do against (lower-case s) strangers was to send bursts of random nerve impulses towards the generally right area, making them drop things or stumble.

But with hours of study and calibration he could gain complete control of a person, down to reading their sensory inputs straight off the relevant nerves. Quite similar to how you use sorcerer's sight, really. But that's not what you copied. You aren't getting any insight into Evil Taylor's nervous system no matter how much you wave your finger at her. You just have the power to make people twitch.

"No shapeshifting for you, then," you grumpily tell the helplessly mirthful clone.

---

With his original power-study debt paid off, Alec requested another heist as a condition of him remaining in BITN. His lair is, to reiterate, a lot nicer than yours and contains more minions, so of course the upkeep would be more expensive. You don't particularly care for villainy, but it's a small enough price to pay for keeping 1.5 excellent minions around. So you Poltergeist it up and roll out with your homies, or however the hoodlums say it.

"You're rolling out with your crew," Aisha says. "Homies are more like acquaintances."

You roll out with your crew, then. However, less than halfway to your destination a pair of thugs with shotguns show up to block your path.

"Huh," Ghost says. "Did we piss someone off?"

"I wonder what they want?" Aisha says, not slowing her roll or even bothering to vanish. You imagine that would change if they actually pointed their guns in your direction, but you still get this tiny little barely perceptible warm feeling at how much she trusts you to handle the situation.

The guns remain averted as you approach. One of them even lets go of the barrel to raise a hand to his forehead, a gesture halfway between a salute and the tipping of a non-existent hat.

"Trousers wants t'see ya, ma'am," he says respectfully. "Urgent-like."

Huh. You had rather gotten the impression that she hated and/or feared you, what with her general refusal to speak to or look at you. And here she comes with an invitation polite as can be, given that shotguns are involved.

"Sorry, crew," you rasp out with Poltergeist's damaged voice. "Looks like today's little outing is cancelled. Dismissed."

Ghost mutters some probably-impolite things under her breath, while Aisha just shrugs.

"Lead on," you tell the thugs.

---

Merchant territory hasn't become a better place for a casual stroll since the last time you tried. From the tension of your escorts it quickly becomes apparent that the heavily armed invitation wasn't for your benefit - it's just that a single shotgun-armed thug didn't feel safe on his own. These very much aren't the people that build civilization.

Unlike Skidmark, who was happy to lounge in filth with the rest of the rejects, Trousers is prototyping the borderless society. Or in other words, she has a luxurious first-world penthouse suite in the middle of her privately-owned third-world slum. You pass several more people with shotguns in and around the ground floor of the building, tasked with keeping the two worlds apart.

Fair play to the open borders advocates: The system clearly works, provided that you can secure yourself a slum to economically exploit, and never ever want to go outside. But why would you want to go outside, when you can just have your hunky personal trainer of indeterminate ethnicity inject you with carefully measured doses of medical-grade heroin whenever you start feeling antsy?

That last part wasn't something you'd heard anyone in the Empire mention (they'd have referred to the trainer's ethnicity as 'mystery meat'), just what you observed going on as you emerged from the elevator. She's not just prototyping the future utopia, she's adding brand new innovations as well.

Trousers regards you levelly throughout the process, unmasked and unashamed. Her eyelids droop and her body relaxes as the stuff hits her bloodstream, but still she does not greet you.

"Are you going to talk this time around?" you ask, bemused.

She doesn't even shake her head, she just slowly tilts to the side until she lies sprawled on the couch. One hand flops out in a gesture vaguely directed at the coffee table in front of her, which holds a single piece of paper. You'll take that as a no. You have no idea what she has against you - which presumably means it hasn't happened yet, whatever it is.

You roll your eyes behind your mask as you bend down to see what message she's left you. "Why'd you even bother to invite me over if you..." You trail off, because the answer becomes obvious as you read the note, all five characters of it. The personal touch was to impress upon you the seriousness of the communication, to convey that there could be no question of it being a joke or a trick.

S9 INC

You look at where the windows have been taped over with cardboard. You'd assumed it was because her drug habit left her sensitive to bright light, but clearly that was making an ass of u and meds. S9 coming means Shatterbird singing, which means-

"'preciate the heads up," you call out over your shoulder as you hit the elevator running.

---

I answer the phone on the first ring. It's not that I'm worried - badass villains like myself don't get worried, duh - I'm just... interested. Yeah.

"Hey Boss," I say casually, so she doesn't get any weird ideas about me not being badass. "What'd she want?"

"The S9 is coming. Are here already."

"Uh." Okay, worried definitely isn't what I am right now. "You... you'll handle it, right?"

"I'm handling the most important part."

Focus, Aisha. You're Imp. Badass villain with a heart of gold. And also loyal minion. "Can I help?"

There's a pause. "...no, you wouldn't make it in time." She hangs up. I slowly lower the phone, my mind racing. They're attacking right now?

"So what'd Trousers want?" Alec asks.

"Slaughterhouse 9," I say dully.

"Here? Now?" he asks, and I nod. "Well, shit." He looks sadly at his game console - which admittedly won't survive Shatterbird announcing herself, but you know, priorities? "...she'll handle it, though?" he says hopefully.

"She's handling, and I quote, 'the most important part.'"

"I hope that means 'keeping us alive.' As opposed to, you know, 'keeping herself alive.'"

I consider that for a moment. "I'm not sure her life even needs saving. I mean, what are the odds that they won't want to recruit her?"

"True. Only... don't they have this thing about making recruits kill their old teammates?"

"Um." I consider some more. "Not to be a faggot, but do you think we should maybe warn the heroes?"

Shatterbird is not difficult to find. You can see her power starting to suffuse the city, propagating a vibration through every piece of glass and silicon that as of yet is too subtle to see with the naked eye. It means you don't have much time, but with sorcerer's sight every window you pass by is a signpost pointing in her rough direction.

Rough directions are all you need, because her costume isn't exactly subtle: An angel of stained glass, each fragment held in place by her power. The ten-foot wingspan is hard to miss.

"Stop!" you shout as you haul yourself onto the rooftop she's chosen for her performance. Or you try to, Poltergeist's voice isn't so good at shouting. But she must have heard you, because she fires a shard of glass from her wing at you even though she's looking in the other direction. You catch it with a mind-hand.

"No seriously, stop," you say.

Shatterbird turns around, and does a double-take upon seeing you. She's the only member of the S9 to wear a mask, a bird's skull made of multicolored glass. But the eye sockets are large enough that you can see the surprise on her face. "Poltergeist?" she says. She tries to pull the shard back into her wing, but can't muster enough force to overcome the grip of your mind-hand until you politely let go. "Did you encounter one of the others already?"

"No?" You're just as confused as she appears to be, but relax fractionally. As long as she's talking, she's not singing.

"Then who told you you were my candidate?"

Oh. You weren't entirely sure what to do next, once you had Alec's power. But just like that your next several weeks are all planned out for you.

"Didn't know I was," you say. "I suppose you have a test for me, then?"

She nods. "I would pit your telekinesis against mine. Prepare yourself!" At her words, her wings explode out into a billowing cloud, which quickly moves to surround you in a whirlwind of glass. This is going to suck, isn't it? You drop into mantis form.

Thanks to the improved awareness it grants, you easily catch the first shard to swerve inwards to strike at you. And the second, and the third. But then you're out of mind-hands, and Shatterbird still has, oh, around three thousand shards left.

When the fourth shard comes you strike out with a regular hand to deflect it. But when it makes contact it explodes into fragments - fragments that curve around your hand and fly into your sleeve, where they score their way up your forearm in a spiraling pattern.

"No cheating," Shatterbird says. "Telekinesis only."

You throw away the shards you caught to free up your mind-hands. They immediately curve around in the air and come back for another pass, but as long as you just bat them away each time instead of trying to hold on to them, a single mind-hand will suffice to keep them at bay. Leaving the other two free to cut open your sleeve and snatch up the fragments slicing your arm into ribbons before they can reach more vital areas. You toss them away, and stop the bleeding.

Of course Shatterbird isn't going to leave it at that. More and more shards join the attack. A dozen. Two. You rip off your mask and throw at away, needing every scrap of peripheral vision you can muster. It's not as if you're wearing a real face beneath it.

The number of shards attacking you double, and double again. A hundred shards fly at you simultaneously. Mind-hands twist through the air at the speed of though, deflecting each and every one with a ripple of twisted space. Then there are two hundred. Three hundred. Shards fly at you from every direction, and you're no longer turning to spot them so much as spinning on your heel. Five hundred. You are not hit.

You're granted a moment's reprieve as Shatterbird growls in frustration, her concentration slipping. Then she clenches her fists, and the entire cloud converges on you.

This. This is what your power was made for. Due to your preparation, you've rendered your opponent entirely impotent. Your body feels as if it's trapped in resin, struggling to move a fraction of an inch in the time it takes your mantis mind to pick out and deflect a hundred incoming threats. You can't possibly hope to turn fast enough to see what's approaching from behind you anymore, but it does not matter. You are one with the glass. You can feel the trajectories, intuit where every one of the 3173 shards will strike.

You have no idea how long it goes on. Seconds, minutes? Subjectively, hours and days. You do not falter. The same power that lets you operate at such speeds keeps you from tiring. To a mortal observer you must not be visible at all, your mind-hands blurring together into a solid white sphere around you.

With a scream of rage Shatterbird sends the rest of her costume to reinforce the attack, leaving her standing naked on the roof. It matters not. What do you care if there are 4892 threats instead of 3173? Let her bring ten thousand shards or ten million, she will not draw blood again.

Eventually she realizes this, and stops attacking. With nothing left to defend against, your mind slows back down to mortal speeds with the grace of a bird hitting a jet engine. You stumble and fall on your ass as your body stops being stuck in time, the world spinning and wobbling around you. Note to self, mantis form will prevent you from being overwhelmed by a flurry of attacks. No more and no less.

Wait, it's not just you, the world really is wobbling. Space itself bucks and heaves from the compounded spatial distortions caused by your hyperactive mind-hands. Speaking of heaving, your inner ear would much prefer if space kept still. You manage to roll over onto your hands and knees just in time for your breakfast to evacuate the premises.

Once the continuum settles down a bit, you get to your feet. Spitting out bile and wiping your mouth, you turn to face your sponsor. Shatterbird is dressed once more, and she's staring at you like she doesn't know whether to compliment you or curse you.

Do I know how to pick them, or what?

No but seriously, what? How?

"One down, seven to go?" you prompt her when she doesn't speak.

She nods. "I'll tell Siberian you're ready for her trial as soon as I've sung for the city."

"Don't," you say. "It's a trap."

"What?"

"Your power works on sand as well as glass, right?"

"Yes?"

"You know about the Silver Desert?"

"I've heard about it."

"It might wake up if you try to claim its sand. I really don't want to find out what happens if it wakes up."

"It's alive?" She fixes you with a suspicious look. "I haven't heard anything about that."

"Not many people know." Literally only you, to be precise. And now her. You hold up your hands in a 'not touching anything' gesture. "Hey, I'm not trying to stop you from wrecking the city." It would be nice if she didn't, but getting her to not poke the Desert is a higher priority. "Just, don't touch that part? You know, for the same reason you don't walk up to Scion and slap him in the face?"

"I don't have that sort of control at long range. But I can't just not sing. I always sing to announce our presence..." She's frowns in worry and chews on her lower lip as she considers the matter. You don't think she realizes how much of her face is visible through her mask. It's entirely possible that no one has told her, because everyone she meets is too busy either running away or begging for their life.

"I might have a suggestion..."

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack

Daniel Snuts · Aug 23, 2022

Behind you, every window explodes into shards of glass. But your persuasion succeeded: The effect does not overtake you to engulf the entire city.

Rather than fall to the ground, the countless shards rise into the air and fly back towards Shatterbird, where they form a giant tornado of glass around her. Then she starts to move. The tornado grows as fresh glass enters her range and is absorbed. In this way she will scour the city (except detouring around the Silver Desert).

You probably saved countless lives just now, and not just because you kept her from angering the Desert. The poor bastards in the middle of that tornado are a lost cause, but everyone else is much better off: Instead of everything exploding all at once with no warning, people get to see it coming. This way they can hide, or run, or circle around to hide in its wake.

But, that's no longer your problem. You think back to what Shatterbird told you before you left.

"Most recruits fail a test or two," she'd said. "But you should give it your all regardless. The penalty isn't always death, but it's always worse.

"Siberian will be coming for you next, her test is always the same: She'll hunt you across the city until she gets bored - usually a couple of days. Her penalty is always death, but she'll probably just mutilate you and let you go the first couple of times she catches you."

"How many are 'a couple?'" you'd asked.

"Depends on how bored she is."

So, that's something you have to look forward to now. You can probably manage. You imagine it would be worse for people who sleep. You also consider what Shatterbird didn't tell, you, but you found out anyway:

Shatterbird wants Jack-sempai to notice her.

You'd been taken aback at first, but it does make sense when you think about it. Jack is fairly handsome, in an 'old enough to be your dad' way. And while the whole 'psychotic mass murdering serial killer' thing would ordinarily be a turnoff, well, Shatterbird is one too. Hell, when you think about it like that Jack must be the millionaire CEO of the mass murdering serial killer dating pool. You can totally see where she's coming from.

---

"That was different from your usual performance," Jack says.

I look away, my cheeks heating up. "It- I just wanted to try something different." It's not that I want to keep secrets from him, but... I'm not sure I can explain why I believed Poltergeist about the Desert.

She was genuinely concerned, or I'm no judge of character at all. But if he doesn't believe me, he'll think I'm gullible. Or maybe worse, if he thinks there really is a slumbering Endbringer-thing in the city, he's going to poke at it just to see what happens.

He would probably be fine. He always knows what to do. But the rest of us? Something that scares Poltergeist... I glance up to find him still looking at me. I squirm under his evaluating gaze.

"Sit still!" Bonesaw commands. "You're throwing off my stitches!"

"I didn't expect there to be anyone brave enough to shoot the tornado," I complain. "Much less hit me inside it."

"Hm," Jack says. "It could use some improvement, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next."

He liked it! Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!

You get quite the shock when you first spot Siberian, and it's not because there's an indestructible tiger-striped nudist cannibal Case 53 bearing down on you. Because there isn't. It's an indestructible tiger-striped nudist cannibal Master projection. Holy shit. How the hell has she managed to keep that under wraps for so long?

You still run the fuck away, of course, even as you marvel at this feat of... reverse sandbagging? Everyone thinks Siberian is an indestructible Brute, but there's actually been a normal squishy human hiding in the wings the whole time?

You get the impression that she's just playing with you for now. She keeps leaping out at you from ambush, but as long as you promptly spot her and run away, she doesn't try very hard to catch up. She probably gets her jollies from seeing her prey gradually tire itself out. Maybe you should pretend to grow sleepy as the chase goes on, to keep her in a good mood.

Spotting her ambushes are not a problem, not with sorcerer's sight. Since she's a Master projection, there's a glowing umbilical cord connecting her to her real body. As long as you keep the cord in sight, you can always tell which way she's going.

It works really well, right up until cord vanishes without warning. Before you can figure out what's going on, Siberian leaps out of the wall next to you (leaving a cartoonishly neat Siberian-shaped hole) and grabs you by the throat. That's not where she was a moment ago!

Oh. The downside of your plan is obvious in retrospect. In order to keep the umbilical cord in sight, you had to remain more or less directly between Siberian and Secret Tiger Mom at all times. And if you are staying between two people and keep running away from one of them, you'll inevitably approach the other. Tiger Mom must have gotten nervous about your proximity, and resummoned her projection in front of you stop stop you from getting any closer.

But you're still alive, so she probably doesn't suspect that you know her secret. Just a precaution. But she has caught you, and you were told what happens next.

You briefly consider turning into shadow to escape. No, better not. She did catch you fair and square (or at least, she doesn't know you know she cheated), she might start playing for keeps if you try to avoid your punishment. Not releasing her grip on your throat, she starts removing your right glove with her free hand.

You could bad touch her with Flechette's power. No, that's an even worse idea. It probably won't work, because the bad touch only works on living beings, which she isn't. That's what got you caught in the first place. But even if it did work, Tiger Mom would just a) create a new projection, and b) murder you to keep secret that 'Siberian' can respawn.

So instead you just squirm in her grip and flail at her with your mind-hands. Not because it could possibly hurt her, but because prey that doesn't struggle is boring. And you very much don't want her to be bored right now.

Having removed your glove, Siberian brings your hand to her mouth, gripping it so that only your index finger is extended. She gently licks your finger before taking it into her mouth. She sucks on it for a while, her eyes half-lidded and an expression of bliss on her face. You'd call it disturbingly sexual, if you didn't know what comes next.

She bites down.

You snatch your hand away with a hissed curse, and stop the bleeding. She grins at you with bloody lips and lets go of your throat. She makes a shooing motion, and you obligingly scurry off. Away from Tiger Mom, this time.

You've had your fair share of injuries, but you've never been amputated before. It feels wrong, nothing but throbbing pain where a finger ought to be. It's going to make it a bitch to maintain multiple identities, too. Ugh, she's just a master projection, she doesn't even need to eat! Fucking psycho cannibal LARPer!

---

"Well?" Jack asks. "Did you find our wayward Cherish?"

"Yes and no," I say. "The tracker pointed towards a pile of fresh rubble in Regent's territory. Looks like her little suicide bomber countdown act finally caught up with her."

Bonesaw stamps her foot in anger. "Ugh! I offered to make her a virus-bomb instead. But nooo, she wanted to stick with her dumb explosives. I can't vaccinate you against blowing up!"

"Disappointing," Jack says. "But she never was all that bright."

"But we were going to do the 'none of us were Mastered all along' surprise party! Now I installed all those redundant ganglia in everyone for no reason!"

"Cheer up, poppet. Look on the bright side. Your own candidate did well enough on her first trial, didn't she? Heartbreaker's kids blowing each other up means there's another spot open, and less competition. Better odds for your 'big sis' to make it in."

"I suppose," Bonesaw says, but she's still pouting.

"Maybe you can take Crawler to dig through the ruins?" I suggest. "See if you can salvage any parts of her brother?"

Bonesaw crosses her arms and does her best to look disdainful. "No! She's dumb and he's dumb too and he'd make dumb art!"

You were so focused on getting to Shatterbird that you completely forgot about the Slaughterhouse 9's other tradition on arriving in a new city: They completely wipe out one of the parahuman gangs. With Lung gone, and Trousers forewarned and taking measures to ensure her own safety, that only leaves one gang. And a pile of bodies in front of you, left in the street as a statement. This is S9's playground now, where none may contest them.

They're all there. Purity, Krieg, Aurelius, Hookwolf... The S9 casually destroyed one of the most powerful gangs in the country. Cricket, Crusader, Night, Fog, all gone. Just to show that they could. Fenja, Stormtiger, Victor, Othala... Rune. Rune's mask is gone, and her empty eyes stare at you accusingly. 'Why did you not warn us?' she seems to be asking you. 'Were you not one of us? Were we not friends?'

You look away from her without answering, your eyes moving to the top of the pile and the source of the screaming that drew you here. Alabaster is immortal. The S9 solved this with crucifixion, though not the traditional kind. He'd heal from having nails driven through his limbs, so instead they bound him to a steel cross. It has some sort of mechanism above his head to keep him doused in burning gasoline. Every four seconds he is healed to perfect health, but this does not remove the gasoline. He screams as he burns.

You turn and run away. No, you're not leaving him like that, but you're not getting any closer either. There's no way that thing isn't booby-trapped to kill rescuers. A hundred feet away, at the utmost edge of your mind-hand range, you stop to slash at his bonds.

It's slow going. He's held in place with steel cables, and your mind-hands are sluggish and clumsy so far from your body (though still more dextrous than your normal hands). But the cables are thin, and perhaps softened by the heat of the fire. One by one they give way as you saw at them.

Distracted as you are by your task, Siberian catches unaware. Middle finger, gone. You stop the bleeding. She waves an admonishing finger of her own in your face afterwards, glancing meaningfully towards Alabaster. No messing with the art installation.

You hang your head submissively in response. As much as you want to circle back around and try again, you can't. She'll be expecting it. You got one of his arms free, he'll have to do the rest himself.

---

The orders from Director Tagg had been very clear: Remain at HQ until an evacuation can be arranged. Do not go outside, do not get involved.

One of the PRT troopers also let slip a quote that did not appear on the official orders: 'A blessing in disguise, frankly. It's all ruins anyway, we'll just let the psychos cull the villains my useless predecessors failed to root out.'

No one was very happy about it. People were dying out there, innocent people, while we did nothing to help! But the alternative was disobeying direct orders... and going up against the Slaughterhouse 9. How many of us would go out there if we could? Perhaps it was better to this way, to have the excuse of orders to salve the guilt of cowardice.

Clockblocker and I also got a second set of orders: Under no circumstances were we to use our powers against Crawler. He must not be allowed to build up a resistance against temporal or durability-ignoring effects.

It made sense. There were few enough things that could hurt him already, and we needed to keep those in reserve until we could set up a sure kill. It continued to make perfect sense, right up until Crawler came crashing into the Ward's common room with a cry of "Fhechekke!"

The troopers downstairs must have tried to stop him, because he's splattered with blood and containment foam. But rather than hinder him, the foam is flowing off his skin like water from a raincoat - it's something he's encountered previously, and adapted to.

Clockblocker promptly decides to completely ignore his orders and throws himself in front of Crawler, freezing him in time.

"Run!" he shouts.

What choice do I have? I run.

He was coming for me, I realize. That had been my name he tried to pronounce. I was one of the recruits. Did the Director not consider that heroes might be targeted for recruitment? Or... with a sinking feeling I recalled the report of what happened to the E88. Would he not sacrifice a pawn or two for such a result, and consider it a bargain?

That was it, then. I could no longer sit back and wait for evacuation. I could no longer hide. I would have to take the fight to the S9, and either win or die.

There's a note in your hand. You'd wonder where it came from, but you have bigger problems right now. You know it's trustworthy.

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

It's not asking the easy questions, is it? What do you need, right now? "Faultline has a golden amulet set with a milky white stone," you say out loud. It wouldn't ask a question if it wasn't safe to answer. "I could use that."

---

Almost two full days after she warned you away from Alabaster, Siberian manages to corner you in an alley. You consider your options as she closes in. She'll mutilate you and let you go the first couple of times. A couple is at least two, as you've already demonstrated. It might not be three.

Gonna have to drop one of the sandbags, huh. As she pounces, you fly straight up the side of the building. You grab random points on the facade with your mind-hands as you rise, as if you were hauling yourself up. You aren't, of course, your mind-hands do not transmit any force back to your body. You're using your regular flight power. But this way it plausibly looks like something Poltergeist could do all along.

Siberian looks up in surprise, but quickly grins and gathers herself for a leap. She launches herself with explosive force, but it's all muscle. Or whatever Master projections use in place of muscle. Point is she can't fly, and has no more aerial maneuverability than any other Brute. You easily dodge out of the way as she shoots past you, and again as she grabs the side of the building and throws herself back down at you.

You meet each other's eyes as you alight on the edge of the roof. What now?

Now she walks calmly walks into the building, apparently. But not in order to take the stairs, as you quickly discover. In order to casually stroll through all the load-bearing walls. You discover this because the building starts to collapse.

No matter. You leap (fly) over to the neighboring building before yours can settle more than a couple of feet. Then you keep going, running across rooftops and flying across streets. It's tempting to stick around and taunt her with your slipperiness, but also dumb. Between her speed and your low flight ceiling, you're not entirely sure you could dodge her leaps if she demolished every building in the vicinity.

Looking behind you, you spot her gliding up above roof level. Wait, gliding? She isn't supposed to - oh. You see what's going on. She is immune to all forces that would act on her body. Including, at her discretion, gravity. Okay, you somewhat underestimated her aerial maneuverability, but it doesn't matter. A mere 32.2 ft/s2 of wiggle room is not enough to make a difference, especially not when it can only be applied in one direction. Which you proceed to prove as you avoid her next several leaps, careful to always dodge to the side, never above or below her.

She still chases you halfway across the city before she gives up, collapsing another half dozen buildings in the process (at least some of them intentionally). From the way the other end of the umbilical moves to keep up, Tiger Mom must be in a vehicle of some sort.

She even starts throwing rubble at you towards the end. ...you feel almost insulted by that, Shatterbird must not have told her how your first test went. Then the next time you see her she doesn't try to chase, she just waves at you and beckons you closer.

"I passed your test?" you ask warily, not approaching.

She nods and offers you smile that would be a lot friendlier if she didn't still have your dried blood around her lips. Seeing as how not a single speck of dust or dirt stuck to her after running straight through multiple walls, she must be doing it on purpose. Hell, it's not just that she's allowing it to stick, she must be extending her invulnerability to the blood itself or it would have rubbed off several buildings ago.

She's still beckoning you closer. You'll just have to trust that she won't eat you when you approach.

She doesn't. She ruffles your hair affectionately, then picks you up and slings you over her shoulder. Then she leaps away with what would have been bone-pulverizing, organ-rupturing force if she hadn't granted you invulnerability first. You guess she knows where your next test is taking place.

Daniel Snuts · Aug 24, 2022

You wouldn't call Burnscar a pyromaniac. Pyromaniacs are people who like to hang out with fire a lot. They're pals. Burnscar wants to marry fire, settle down in a nice burning house in the countryside and have lots of little burning children. She loves fire so much, she deliberately negated her power-granted fire immunity in order to put decorative burn scars on her own face.

"Give me your hand," Burnscar says.

You hold up both hands, wiggle all eight fingers. "Dominant, or intact?" you ask. You have no illusions about where this is going.

She goes for 'intact'. She makes you hold it out in front of you and puts her own hand beneath it, palm upwards. "Don't flinch," she says. Her eyes glow orange, and flames erupt from her hand to engulf yours.

You grit your teeth, but don't flinch. This test is exactly as subtle and sophisticated as you expected it to be.

If you wanted to burn someone's hand off, you'd use something like a welding torch, something powerful and efficient. Burnscar, of course, loves fire too much for that. This is more like dropping a hot dog into a campfire. It turns black and splits open and juices seep out. The smell of cooked and burnt meat fills the room. The pink interior revealed by the cracks gradually turns into charcoal as well. Bits start to fall off at the ends.

From the way Burnscar stares at it, you're surprised her other hand isn't down her pants already.

Yes, of course it hurts. You thought that went without saying. The pain is indescribable. Unlike the last two tests, you have no powers for this. All you can do is stand there and clench your teeth as your hand slowly - oh so slowly - burns away to nothing.

(this is but a fraction of what you left Alabaster to experience)

---

Your three remaining fingers notwithstanding, it's amazing just how family friendly the modern S9 is. From a power-harvesting perspective, you mean. None of their powers are actually evil, or even unsightly. Well, Crawler is pretty unsightly. But personality aside Jack is just a Blaster, his knife beams no more objectionable than Gallant's concussive emotions. Less objectionable even, since they lack the Master component.

Shatterbird is just the world's strongest Shaker, and Siberian is a ~~Brute~~ Master projection like any other (okay, the nudity might offend some people... but the cannibalism is strictly optional). Even Bonesaw and Mannequin are just bio-tinkers. They could just as easily use their powers for good - and did, in the latter case, for several years. You want it all!

Compare this to some of their former members - like Breed, who conjured anthropophagic insect monsters that laid their eggs in human corpses. Or Psychosoma, who transformed people into monsters under this control. Crimson, who gained Brute powers by drinking people's blood. Gray Boy, whose power was consigning people to eternal torment with no hope of rescue.

It's almost as if you were meant to do this, as if fate guided them to you at this point in time. Provided you with a target so juicy you couldn't possibly pass it up, despite the price. You'd inform fate of how you feel about its machinations, but you're all out of middle fingers.

---

Mannequin makes Burnscar's burn scars look like amateur hour. His great love is life support systems, which he demonstrated by cutting himself into pieces, encasing each piece in its own self-contained tinkertech capsule, and reassembling himself into a gleaming white puppet like something an artist would use to study poses.

He leans into that likeness too, fond of exaggerated gestures performed with inhuman grace and precision - but interspersed with entirely alien movements where this knees gyrate sideways and his hands are reeled out on chains. Occasionally he also separates his torso-sections to flash you with panels of clear glass instead of white ceramic, and the pulsing organs within. Because why just creep people out when you can also gross them out, right?

Frankly, you prefer Burnscar's take on artistic self-mutilation. She was less tryhard about her psychosis.

Mannequin leads you into a large basement. It's lit by a single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and the typical waterlogged debris of the post-Leviathan basement has been swept to the sides, creating an open space some 40 or 50 feet across. In the middle of the room, directly underneath the lightbulb, is a single chair. There's a man cuffed to the chair, with a bag over his head.

This test also appears to be very predictable. Mannequin pirouettes over to the captive and removes the bag with a flourish. You realize you were dead wrong about his predictability.

"Dad!?"

How!? You're Poltergeist, you have no link- no. The answer is only too obvious. Low Key was arrested. The heroes have your blood, it's in a national database now. The S9 have your blood too, smeared all over Siberian's face. Mannequin was able to cut himself into a dozen-odd individually packaged parts without dying, he could sequence your DNA in his sleep.

"Wha? Who're you?" Danny looks to be unharmed, but is understandably displaying the confusion and alarm of a man confronted with a teenage girl he's never seen before claiming to be his daughter.

"It's me, dad. Taylor. I'm just in disguise." You hurriedly unfuck your voice and shift your skin tone back to caucasian. "See, I'm a Changer." You really shouldn't reveal that to anyone, but fuck sandbagging, this is your dad! Besides, Mannequin already knows.

"Taylor? Oh god, you have to get out of here! Run! You-" He swallows the rest of what he was going to say when Mannequin leans down and presses a finger to his lips.

Mannequin then launches himself into a cartwheel back towards you. He comes to a stop kneeling in front of you, one hand held up to offer you a knife on an open palm (procured by some sleight of hand during the cartwheel), the other gesturing grandly towards Danny. Aside from the shocking twist in the middle, it is indeed a very predictable test.

"No," you say. "I refuse."

Mannequin staggers back in feigned shock. Drawing himself up to his full height, he tilts his head to the side and theatrically strokes his chin. Then he leans forward again, once more offering you the knife. This time he's also making little encouraging stabbing motions with his free hand, just to make sure you understand what he's getting at.

"No. I fail this test."

Mannequin lets the knife fall. He wags his finger in front of your face admonishingly. His antics work perfectly - you're so distracted by the finger in your face that you don't have time to react when his other hand sprouts foot-long claws and he drives them straight into your abdomen.

You can faintly hear your father shouting your name in the background, but all you can think of is Shatterbird's words when she described the testing process.

The punishment is always worse.

You curl up around the injury, trapping his hand against your body. Mind-hands spring up, taking hold of his head. For the first time, you crack the sky in anger. But rather than the sky, you aim it straight into the ground. His head shatters like an egg, the sheer force of the impact knocking you over and pushing you back across the floor. Meat and blood splatters across the room, and you feel shards of ceramic digging into your flesh.

Mannequin falls apart, chains extending between his remaining parts to let them move freely, but he doesn't die. Roughly half the pieces deploy various cutting implements and swarm towards you, completely abandoning their pretense of humanoid shape. You fend off most, but accept some minor cuts in order to capture a second piece to smash against the floor.

After losing another part Mannequin abandons his attack and instead tries to skitter away, but you refuse to let go of his hand. Mind-hands lash out again and again. You don't stop just because the hand you're clutching starts wriggling about, retracting its claws and stabbing them back into your stomach over and over again. You don't stop until he goes limp and stops struggling, and you can see pieces of brain among the shards and giblets.

You can hear a voice coming from somewhere far away.

"Taylor, are you alright? Please, you have to get up! You killed him, I can't believe you killed him. We're safe now. Taylor! We have to get out of here!"

"He killed Ylva," you say. Now that you've said it out loud, now that you've admitted it's real, now the tears come.

"Ylva? Who's Ylva?"

"My daughter!" Finally there's silence, letting you cry in peace.

---

The silence is interrupted by a slow clapping.

"Bravo, bravo," Jack Slash says. "A truly brilliant performance." He bows towards the largest concentration of bloody mess on the floor. "Ah, Alan. Once again you beat me at my own game. And since you won't be around for a rematch, I must concede the title."

"He was very naughty," Bonesaw counters. "I was looking forward to having a little sister. I had so many ideas for improving her!"

You climb to your feet and face the newcomers, but don't do or say anything further. You hope they've come to kill you for what you did to Mannequin. You hope that, because if killing the examiner is permitted you could have- you could-

"I suppose it's my turn now," Jack says. He bends down and picks up Mannequin's knife, then lazily tosses it at you. A mind-hand reflexively snatches it out of the air. He nods towards Danny. "You know what to do. Rest assured, this time the penalty for failure will be death."

It takes you a moment to process his words. Then the mind-hands lash out once more. Knives appear in Jack's hands, and beams of force cut your mind-hands apart. You reel back in shock, and Jack aims a cut at you. You poof into shadow. The beam of force passes through your shadow form, and it hurts. You lose control of the power, almost losing your footing as you return to solidity ahead of schedule. The damage to your shadow form has translated into a long gash across your chest. You stop the bleeding.

"Interesting," Jack says. You suppose no one was supposed to know Poltergeist can turn into shadow either. But fuck sandbagging, this is your dad.

Jack doesn't immediately attack again, so you take the opportunity to properly assume mantis form before summoning up new mind-hands. They reappear none the worse for wear, and you renew your assault. Now that you're ready for it you can replace them as quickly as they're cut apart. Knife beams and mind-hands dance in the air, colliding and canceling each other out as the two of you strike and parry. Jack is being forced back, but you can't seem to land a hit, and he never stops smiling.

Then he does a strange little hop, and knife beams shoot out from his feet. He has knives hidden in his goddamn shoes? You can't imagine how many people have fallen to that trick. The motion looks nothing like an attack, and the knife beams themselves are invisible. If not for sorcerer's sight, the fight would have been over then and there.

Jack doesn't appear upset at you seeing through and parrying his little sneak attack, though. Instead, his face lights up as if you just gave him a Christmas present. Grinning widely, he resumes his attack - and suddenly you're the one being forced back. He was holding back this whole time, toying with you?

Mantis form isn't helping. Or it's helping, but not enough. Shatterbird tried to simply overwhelm you with a storm of glass, but with Jack every move is unpredictable, every feint and attack performed with cunning intent. It's not that there's too many knife beams to keep track of. He's just better than you.

But, losing is not an option. You meet his next attack with your right arm. Your cauterized stump is cut open, but you stop the bleeding. Meanwhile the mind-hands that would have parried the blow are diverted to pick up shards of ceramic from the floor. You launch yourself towards Jack at the same time as you fire the shards with crack the sky, bracketing him and constraining his movements.

All you need to do is to gently brush against him and you can bad touch him out of existence. But Jack steps aside from your charge, calmly accepting a shard penetrating his ribcage in return. How- combat Thinker, you realize far too late. That's what the odd fluctuations of his power means. That's how he's able to keep up with your mind-hands.

Trying to stop and turn around to face him again is sure to result in disaster, so instead you continue your trajectory, turn into shadow and flow into the debris along the walls.

"That really won't help, you know," Jack says conversationally, turning to look right at you. Your heart sinks. Now that you're looking for it, you can spot the faint pulses of power flashing between him and you. It's not a Lisa-style power, he's not making deductions, he's getting data directly from the opponent somehow. He's maintaining a similar connection with Bonesaw, not that she's bothered to join the fight.

The shadowy tendrils of your body flow through the debris, circling around the room. Jack keeps turning to face you, his power easily keeping track of you. You search for a way out, a vent, a pipe, anything. There is none. A sensation not unlike suffocation grips you. You can't maintain shadow form any longer, and there's no space back here big enough to materialize in. You have to come out, despite Jack knowing exactly where you'll emerge.

With a cry of defiance and despair you flow out and reform, mind-hands striking out one final time.

Jack easily parries them, and cuts your throat.

You stop the bleeding, but that was 50% of your carotid arteries. The fight is over. You fall to one knee, the edges of your vision going dark.

"Fascinating," Jack says. "People usually die when I do that."

"Oh don't kill her yet, mister Jack!" Bonesaw says. "I want to figure which part of her power lets her do that. Changer or Shaker? Or maybe Breaker?"

"Oh, very well. Last chance, miss Poltergeist." He gestures towards where you dropped Mannequin's knife.

"Do it, Taylor!" Danny shouts. "If one of us has to die, let it be me!"

"..." you say. That was meant to be 'no', but your throat isn't working properly.

"Please, Taylor!"

You stretch out a mind-hand and snatch up the fallen knife. You hover it in front of Danny.

"I love you Taylor," he says. "Please be safe."

Your three fingers manage to squeeze your windpipe shut long enough for you to croak out "I love you, dad" before you plunge the knife into his heart.

You allow yourself to pass out.

===

Cherie's Law: If your plan goes

1. Join the S9
2. ???

step 3 is never 'profit'.

Daniel Snuts · Aug 25, 2022

You wake up to discover yourself symmetrical once more. Which is to say, Bonesaw chopped off your other hand while you were unconscious. You find that you don't particularly care. Not because you're a badass - though if Rune asks, that's definitely what you're going with (Rune's dead too). No, you're just... numb. Your family is dead. The last legacy of Fenrir is gone from the world. What are hands? You haven't needed hands in months.

You sort of wish you were the sort of person who could just curl up and die. Giving in to despair sounds really nice right about now. You can't, though. Jack has to die first. Leviathan too. You're not allowed to die until they do. And, the plan must go on. You've passed the halfway point of the S9's trials, and it only cost you everything. Their powers will be yours. It must have been worth it.

Turning your head, you learn that you're roommates with Murder Rat, and she's been watching you sleep. What is there to say about Murder Rat? A disgusting abomination, who was captured by the S9 and surgically combined with her nemesis to form a Frankensteinian amalgam with the powers of both. That her battlecry of 'did somebody order cheesy puns?' will never again ring out proves that no person brings only evil to the world, not even Bonesaw.

No, the gallows humor isn't really cheering you up either. You'd really prefer some other roommate. Any other roommate. This one smells like rotting meat, and the way its face has been sculpted into a snaggletoothed approximation of a rat's snout leaves it constantly drooling. B-minus work, Bonesaw. At least it was content to stand next to your bed rather than creepily lean over you, so it's not drooling on you.

It even looks gross to sorcerer's sight, all splotchy and undead-colored. You didn't realize undead was a color until now. She's also full of tinkertech, but so were Shatterbird and Burnscar and Jack. Simply a consequence of being around Bonesaw for any length of time. You don't spot any cybernetic enhancements in your own body, but you imagine you'll get some as soon as you pass your initiation.

"Do you have a test for me?" you ask the abomination. It twitches a bit at the sound of your voice, but doesn't otherwise respond. When you wave your ~~hand~~ elbow-stump in front of its face, it squeaks in surprise and teleports across the room in a burst of smoke.

That's Mouse Protector's power sure enough. The nemesis was... uh... Ravager, right. You remember. So named for her ability to inflict extra-awful wounds on people. You wonder if you'll be able to study both powers, or if whatever crazy brain surgery combined the two capes left them too mixed up for you to separate. Which power would you prefer if, if you could only get one? Teleportation is nice and all, but you can sort of fake that with shadow dodging already... And an improved wounding power would go really well with Crusader's, now that you think about it.

You decide to put the matter aside for now. Siberian would be a much higher priority even if you hadn't gotten a three day head start on studying her power. And before her you have to focus on Jack, because his secret Thinker power is the most dangerous of all. Steeling your resolve, you get out of bed. You still have three tests to go. Perhaps by the time you're done you won't have feet either. Which is fine, you can fly.

Ah. Looking around the room, it becomes clear that whoever put you to bed didn't leave you any clothes. You frankly have no idea whether this is some subtle torture or part of another test, or if they've just spent so much time around Siberian that they've forgotten that modesty is a thing. Whatever. It's fine. What would they even see? This isn't your real-

You flinch as your eyes settle on the constellation of stitched-up wounds covering your stomach, instinctively curling up to cover yourself. That's- maybe you could use a sheet to- No, you berate yourself. Let them see. Let them remember, when you eventually kill them all. If this is a test, you'll not fail it. You can't imagine how the penalty could be anything worse than what has already happened to you, but your imagination has already been proven to be insufficient.

Squaring your shoulders, you leave the room. Murder Rat doesn't try to stop you, or move at all. It just stands there, staring at you with its beady little eyes.

On the other side of the door is a spacious living room, the most notable feature of which is Crawler. Not a Case 53, despite appearances. They say he was human once, before compulsive use of his adaptive regeneration power made him grow into a chitinous monster the size of Fenr- a horse. Six legs, six arms (or maybe four legs and eight arms, depending on how you count), mandibles, tentacles, eyes all over the place... You really would have preferred to get your regeneration from another source, but it's not as if anything matters anymore.

As soon as he sees you he bounces your way like an eager puppy (sturdy floors in this place) and burbles something unintelligible at you.

"I'm afraid I didn't get that, friend," you say calmly.

"Yoo. Skahb. Nee. Wiff. Yoo. Khoweh," he enunciates carefully. His adaptive regeneration clearly didn't consider social awkwardness something it needed to protect against when it remodeled his mouthparts.

Stab him with your power? "I can do that," you say. He's literally asking you to activate his power so you can study it, of course you're not going to refuse. "You don't have a trial for me?"

He produces a strange burbling laugh and musses your hair (his giant claws lacerate your scalp) (you stop the bleeding).

"Yoo khill Nannekhin. Ghoo enouch foh nee!"

Killing the examiner gives bonus points. If you'd just... if only...

With a cry of something that doesn't quite manage to be anger, you start stabbing Crawler with your mind-hands. Over and over and over. You don't even try to hold back your tears. What's he going to do, call you a crybaby? He can't even pronounce the word!

"Ghoo! Ghoo!" Crawler shouts as you slice off a mandible.

"Die!" you scream. "Just fucking die!"

Crawler laughs happily, turning around to present new parts of his body for stabbing. Despite the blurring of your mundane vision, sorcerer's sight remains clear. A small corner of your mind calmly catalogs everything you see as his wounds close and his flesh slowly transforms to resist spatial warping.

Crawler wants to become completely invulnerable to all harm

---

Bonesaw is in the kitchen, performing surgery on a mortal and humming happily as she works. The blond little Mengele-in-Wonderland (unless Mengele was a nice doctor?) is fairly eye-catching in her blue dress and bloodstained apron, not to mention the tinkertech cybernetics. There's so much of it! She's like an inside-out Armsmaster. But despite that, your attention is more drawn to the swarm of scuttling football-sized spider-robots assisting her.

You stop in the doorway and quietly marvel at the way they are able to carry out complex tasks and respond to verbal commands. Especially impressive considering that they must have been built entirely without using silicon, or they'd never survive Shatterbird's little performances. Something about them nags at you... You swear you've seen this kind of tinkertech somewhere before, but nothing comes to mind.

Because you're content to silently study her helpers (are those organic components? Must be. But they still register as tinkertech to sorcerer's sight), and Bonesaw is absorbed in her work, it takes her several minutes to notice you. When she does, she eeps and claps her hands over her eyes.

"Why are you naked?" she demands.

"Because I had no clothes?" you suggest. Crawler didn't remark on your state of dress.

With her lips set in a grimace of unhappiness and her left hand still covering her eyes, Bonesaw points you at a pile of corpses in the corner. The corpses are wearing clothes. Lovely. Because that won't be covered in blood and shit or anything.

Still, mustn't piss off Bonesaw. You manage to salvage a short red halter top (you'd have preferred something that actually covered your stomach, but the other options were too gross) and a knee-length black skirt. You draw the line at wearing corpse panties, though.

"Why do you care?" you ask Bonesaw once you're done changing. You point at her surgery victim. "He's naked too."

"That's different," Bonesaw says firmly. "That's work."

"Siberian is-"

"Siberian is different too!" You suppose that's fair, her teammates must know she's just a Master projection.

"Crawler is also naked," you point out.

"Shut up! Go away!"

Bonesaw wants to know where powers come from.

---

You settle down in the living room alongside Crawler and Hatchet Face (who is also undead, but not an amalgam). The others must be out and about testing their own recruits, you suppose. There is no conversation - Crawler has curled up like giant pillbug and is presumably napping, and Hatchet Face doesn't respond beyond surly grunts, and shakes his head when you ask him for a test.

Hatchet Face is (was?) a hulking, shirtless beast of a man, named, you suspect, for the way his face looks like someone took a hatchet to it. He has an incredibly unfair set of powers that makes him the ultimate anti-Brute: He combines a respectable Brute rating of his own with a power-nullifying aura. It doesn't stop Blasters from throwing ranged attacks his way - it has no effect on magic lasers already in flight - but any cape who ventures too close will find themselves temporarily mortal. And usually dead soon afterwards.

But just like Blaster powers, sorcerer's sight works perfectly fine as long as you keep your distance. Since his aura is always active, you'll be a power nullifier yourself soon enough. With him and Crawler in the same room... you still can't pretend to convince yourself it was worth it.

You keep getting distracted by the occasional spider-robot scuttling past. Just where- Oh! You know what they remind you of: The shielded processor core Dragon installed in the Smaug. You'd been too busy to give it more than a glance at the time, but it was definitely similar. So Dragon, whose gimmick is copying other people's tinkertech, is secretly using Bonesaw's designs? That you're pretty sure are made with real people-brains? Fucking heroes.

You sigh. You suppose you can't really complain too much about that one, not when you're copying S9 powers right now.

Wait, something else doesn't add up. As in, literally doesn't add up. Shatterbird. Siberian. Burnscar. Mannequin. Jack. Bonesaw. Murder Rat, Crawler and Hatchet Face. That's nine people already, why were they recruiting?

"What's wrong with Murder Rat?" you ask Bonesaw when she shows up. You'd assumed the twitching and drooling and general unresponsiveness was inherent to the undead condition, but Hatchet Face, for all that he is surly and taciturn, is like the original novel Frankenstein's creature to Murder Rat's shambling movie monster.

Bonesaw mumbles something too quiet for you to hear.

"What was that?" you ask.

"It was the first time I combined two people," Bonesaw repeats marginally louder, blushing fiercely. "I've learned a lot about tissue rejection since then!"

"I guess she doesn't count as a proper member of the nine?" you say.

"She used to," Bonesaw says grumpily. "Before she got all manky."

"And he..?" you gesture towards Hatchet Face.

She shakes her head. "Mister Jack says dead people can't be proper members anymore."

"I guess you're the only one left to give me a test, then."

"Mm," Bonesaw agrees. "I'm still thinking about it."

---

There's a note taped to your left stump, in a cipher only you can read.

You have the necklace. Summon the knife.

You glance down, and note that you are in fact wearing Faultline's necklace. You send it Elsewhere with a thought. You hesitate for a moment before bringing out your knife, though. Drawing a weapon while surrounded by three nominally non-hostile members of the S9 seems like a terrible idea. No, bad Taylor. Don't question the notes. The notes are always right.

You call forth the Knife, letting it drop into a mind-hand at your side. You're not sure what the next step is going to be, but the note wouldn't call for the Knife if a regular cutting implement would suffice. You send your power into the Knife, charging it fully. The room lights up with a golden glow-

That's odd. The room suddenly got a lot brighter, and everyone is looking around in confusion. You feel a mind-hand fade as it tries to grip something and finds only air. Something strange is clearly going on. No wonder the note called for you to summon the Knife. You reach out for it, only to find nothing. Oh no! If you can't obey the-

You look at your left wrist in confusion. You swear there was something important about it. It's still missing a hand, you knew that already, that's not it. What's going-

Bonesaw's head falls off.

You jerk back in surprise and you chair tips over backwards. Graceful crane stance lets you turn your fall into a smooth backwards somersault, springing to your feet and into mantis form without a single wasted motion. You're clearly under attack, but how? Sorcerer's sight shows nothing.

"Stranger!" comes Bonesaw's voice. You look down to where her head is lying on the floor. She's a lot less dead than most people would be in her position. There's a white cyst growing above her left eye. When it reaches the size of a grape, it pops - no, explodes would be a better word. A fine white powder flies out of it and spreads to coat the room.

Instantly your sorcerer's sight shuts down, you stop being graceful, your mind-hands fade into nothing and you stumble as you forget how to properly maintain mantis form. Aisha appears in the middle of room, holding a knife that glows like the sun. A lot of things suddenly start making sense.

"Get her!" Bonesaw shouts.

Hatchet Face is closest and goes to grab her, but his motion is slow and clumsy. Everyone in the room just lost their powers, and he is used to superhuman strength. Aisha makes no attempt to escape. She reverses her grip on the knife and leaps to meet him, going for his eyes with an overhand stab.

Hatchet Face manages to jerk his head to the side, and her stab turns into a clumsy slash. With any other weapon it would simply have left a gash and bounced off his skull, even without his Brute powers. Your knife, however, enters just above his left temple and cuts across to exit through his right cheek, taking half his head clean off in the process. Hatchet Face falls.

"No!" you shout. That was a power-nullifying Trump she just broke. You were studying that!

Though their bout lasted barely more than a second, Crawler still used the opportunity to close the distance. Unlike his twice-late compatriot, he is not overly impaired by the dust. His power created his monstrous body, but does not maintain it.

Aisha spins around to face the next threat, but she's too late. Crawler is already upon her. A desperate backhanded slash sends one of his arms flying, but then it's over as Crawler fastens his jaws around her bicep and bites down.

An even exchange, in theory, but whereas Crawler mostly seems non-plussed that his arm isn't growing back, Aisha falls to the floor, screaming and convulsing as his acid saliva eats into her shoulder.

Shit. That was really stupid of her. You did not ask for a rescue attempt. Why did she think this would be a good idea? What do you do now? You want to rush over and help her, but an overt display of sympathy would be a terrible idea.

Bonesaw gets up and walks over to Aisha. Her head is back on her shoulders, but it's clearly a work in progress. She has one spiderbot on each shoulder, working to reconnect things in her neck. A third is clinging to her back with two of its legs jammed into her spine just below her neck. Judging by the way her walk is more of a shamble, you'd guess her spine hasn't been reattached yet and the spider is steering her body manually in the meantime.

"You've been quite the naughty girl, haven't you?" she sing-songs over the screams. You think you detect a slight strain underlying her cheer, though. She might have taken the decapitation a wee bit personally. "What should we do with you, hm?"

You walk over to join her. You should do something, come up with a clever plan. If you had your powers, you could (probably) kill everyone in the room and (maybe) drag Aisha off before Jack or Siberian came back. But even that wouldn't work. With the amount of blood she has lost - and is continuing to lose - you'd never get her medical attention in time. Her life is entirely in Bonesaw's hands.

It seems Bonesaw has had similar thoughts, because the spider on her back detaches and skitters over to Aisha. It stabs a needle-leg into her neck (she grows still as the injection takes effect, but knowing Bonesaw you'd bet it was a paralytic rather than an anesthetic) then goes to work on stopping the bleeding from her missing arm.

"What do you think?" Bonesaw asks, taking you by surprise.

"You're asking me?"

"She's your teammate, isn't she? Such a daring rescue attempt, she must really care for you." She looks thoughtful for a moment, then claps her hands as an idea hits her. "Yes! I've decided. Choosing her punishment will be my test for you! If I like your idea, you pass!"

"...and if you don't like it?"

"Oh, then I've got a pretty good punishment for both of you!" She glances towards the room you woke up in, where Murder Rat is presumably still drooling on herself. Right, nice to know the stakes.

A plan occurs to you. You really hope it's not terrible and can save Aisha's life, because that insubordinate suicidal retard is the closest thing to family you still have.

"She fought pretty well, didn't she?" you venture.

"She broke my Hatchet Face!" Bonesaw responds, pouting.

"Yeah, that was naughty. But still, she fought well. I think we should reward her for that."

Bonesaw stares at you silently, trying to work out where you're going with this. You nod to yourself.

"Yes, a reward. I think you should fix her up, better than ever, and send her home. She lost an arm, and there's a perfectly good arm right there, just lying around." You indicate Crawler's severed arm.

Bonesaw's eyes widen as she catches on to where you're going with this. "Ooh. But no, that wouldn't work. Crawlers blood is all acid-y and nasty. And the cells! He's barely human at all anymore, you know. I vivisect him every so often to check."

"Are you saying you couldn't come up with a solution for that?" you scoff, disbelieving. "You, the greatest doctor in the world?"

"Well, I could- but then- oh! What if..." Bonesaw trails off, muttering inaudibly to herself. Tinker sniped.

"Yes! I figured it out. Almost. I could separate the bloodstreams, and make a mechanical shoulder with a modified placenta for nutrient and oxygen exchange. There'd still be a teensy bit of acid leaking back into her regular bloodstream, though." She frowns at the inelegance of the solution, but brightens up when she realizes the upside. "She'd be in constant pain!"

"She'd really hate you for doing that, then," you point out.

"Yep." She's smiling, that's a good sign.

"She'd hate me too, for betraying a teammate like that. Why, she'd probably want revenge." Please go for it, please go for it, please go for it...

"Oh! She'd come after us!"

"Yes. She'll abandon everything that used to be important to her and stop at nothing to hunt us down. And when she finally catches up to us she will be all 'you turned me into this' and 'I stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back' and 'I am the monster that hunts monsters!'"

Bonesaw giggles as you mime having a giant monster arm get in the way of your pompous brooding antihero poses.

"And that," you continue, "is when you turn to Jack and say 'happy birthday!'"

"Oh, mister Jack will love it! You have the best ideas, Taylor!" Then she suddenly turns somber, and walks over to put a hand on your stomach "I'm really sorry about your daughter," she says softly. "But there wasn't enough left for me to do anything with."

Fuck. Don't cry in front of Bonesaw. Don't do it. "Thanks," you say, the words thick in your throat.

Bonesaw has already turned away, smiling and humming to herself once more as she starts harvesting spare parts from Hatchet Face's corpse. "Gonna need more optic nerves," she says, half to herself. "Be a shame if she couldn't see through the eyes." Right, Crawler has extra eyes on his arms.

Speaking of Crawler, he's been doing absolutely nothing to stop his own bleeding. He seems downright fascinated by the concept of a permanent injury, alternately licking at he wound and shaking it about to spray blood-acid across the wall. The room is getting quite smoky as a result.

"Bonesaw!" you shout. "Can we have our powers back? Crawler is going bleed his way through the floor if he doesn't start regenerating soon."

"Right! Sorry, forgot all about it!" She sends a spider to inject each of you with a counter-agent. You send all three mind-hands reaching across the room in different directions, as if stretching a sore muscle. One brushes over your no longer glowing knife where it lies forgotten in a corner, and you send it Elsewhere. No one notices. The perfect crime, except for the part where it accomplished nothing, killed a power nullifier before you could study him, and left your best friend horribly maimed.

"Murder Rat!" Bonesaw calls. "Fetch me a pregnant woman!"

---

Being hunted by Crawler is a strange experience, because ultimately he does not want to hurt me - quite the opposite, in fact. Every so often he leaps out at me from ambush, hoping to startle me into shooting him, and breaking off the attack when I don't. But I can't get complacent. Sooner or later he will tire of this... Siberian-esque approach, and resort to torture or hostages to compel me to wound him.

This time, I'm prepared. I saw him snuffling around outside, tracking my scent. I've learned how he hunts. I know where he will come from, I know what he'll do, and I've prepared the ground. Yes, I have orders not to use my power against him. But those orders assume I'm still the silly girl who engaged an Endbringer with crossbow bolts.

Right on cue, Crawler leaps straight through the wall. I activate my power.

"Fhe-uh?" His battlecry turns into a grunt of surprise as his feet touch the ground, and are destroyed. I never did get the hang of creating arbitrary patches of death-ground... but laying out a sheet of plastic and empowering the top side of it with the touch of a toe? That I can do.

Despite his surprise, he reacts quickly. Even as he keeps falling into the death-ground and his legs and lower body are destroyed, he manages to reach out an arm beyond the edge of the effect. His claws bite into the floor as he tries to lever himself up.

All that's left of him is the arm, one shoulder and his head, but he's already starting to regenerate. I kick his hand as hard as I can - and scream, as I feel my toes breaking. But his claws lose purchase, and his head falls into the death-ground.

I let myself fall over in the other direction, landing on my butt. Ow, ow, ow, ow. Shouldn't have kicked him with my bare foot! Ow. I should get out of here right now, before any of his friends come looking for him, because I'm certainly in no condition to run away again.

Looking over at the death-ground, all that's left of Crawler are three clawed fingers lying by the edge. With his head gone they don't look to be regenerating anymore, but I scoot over and toss them in anyway, just to be sure.

It's not until my power wears off and the death-ground returns to being innocuous plastic sheeting that it truly dawns on me what happened. I did it. I killed Crawler. I survived. And - a small laughs escapes my lips as something occurs to me that hadn't previously - wasn't his bounty somewhere north of 15 million dollars?

Thank you Quicksilver.

"You're back!" Bonesaw shouts happily as Burnscar enters the room. "What did you think of my candidate? Isn't she great?"

"She failed," Burnscar says simply, with no emotion apparent in either her face or voice.

"Oh no!" Bonesaw emotes enough for both of them, clapping her hands to her face in distress. "You didn't kill her, did you?"

"No. I killed her sister in front of her."

"You're the best!" Bonesaw launches herself at Burnscar for a hug, causing her to stagger backwards and almost lose her footing. "I know we're not supposed to play favorites, but I have really high hopes for this one."

Burnscar doesn't try to extricate herself, instead returning the hug with a surprising intensity, leaning down to nestle her face against Bonesaw's shoulder and petting her hair. Huh. You would not have pegged Burnscar as a cuddler. They're almost cute, if you completely ignore all context.

But you think nothing of it, until Shatterbird comes back and is hugged in turn. She sighs and rolls her eyes, but also spends several minutes cuddling before Bonesaw extricates herself.

"I would not have picked either of those two as the touchy-feely type," you remark to Bonesaw after Shatterbird leaves.

"Oh, Shatterbird used to give the worst hugs until I installed automatic cuddling protocols in her spinal override harness," Bonesaw says cheerfully. "But that reminds me..."

Bonesaw hugs you. Eurgh. There's a certain smell about people who use the not-so-fresh blood of their victims as a fashion statement, that really can't be ignored at this range. But you do your best to be a good hugger even without hands, because you'd like to minimize the amount of overrides in your spine.

---

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *gasp* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *gasp* hee hee hee hee *gasp* ha ha-

I poke Evil Taylor with my foot. When I described Taylor's scars and injuries, she started laughing and didn't stop until she literally passed out from lack of oxygen.

When she comes to, she looks confused for a moment before breaking down into laughter again. She writhes on the floor, struggling for breath and clearly in pain, but she simply can't stop laughing.

I think I may have broken her. I mean, I know she's an evil clone who gets off on Original Taylor's suffering, but isn't this a bit excessive?

"Getting dis-armed isn't that funny," I say sullenly, glaring at my own monster limb.

"Not... the... hands..." Evil Taylor gasps out.

"Yeah? What so funny then?"

"Sworn... not to... say." Then she abruptly stops laughing, looking completely poleaxed. Without another word she scrambles to her feet and staggers out the door.

The fuck was that about?

Bonesaw insisted on accompanying me as I went to test her recruit, no doubt intending to cheat on her behalf. She's been positively giddy about adding the 'healer' to our merry band. How could I turn her down? Cheating is but the spice that gives games their flavor, and I admit to almost being giddy myself. Such a perfect recruit!

Not her power - dear Riley has already brought the mortality rate of the Slaughterhouse distressingly low, though it's outweighed by the new options she has brought to the table. To imagine what they'd do, together... A team of nine- well, eight Crawlers and a Siberian. I'd have to completely change the nature of our games to find any challenge at all!

No, it's her soul that calls to me, grown so small and bitter by her own hand. Some - like that prideful, scheming Poltergeist - simply beg to be broken, but she screams to be rebuilt. To think that someone like her would pretend to be a healer, and quietly nurse her petty sorrows, her neglect and unrequited lust... when she could have made the city her plaything, and held the world at ransom. It would almost be funny, if it wasn't infuriating.

When I can reach out to someone like her, and make the scales fall from their eyes... I imagine it's how the prophets of yore must have felt, that sense of touching something greater than oneself, of purpose fulfilled.

We find her in a park, sitting on a bench beneath a weeping willow, and doing just that. A bit on the nose, I feel, but she won't be the first recruit with a taste for amateur dramatics.

Something feels wrong, though. I look around as we approach. The park is unusually green - situated as it is on hill on the inland edge of the city, it managed to retain most of its topsoil despite Leviathan's best efforts. But nothing else appears out of place. Curious.

"Hi!" Bonesaw says cheerfully.

Panacea looks up, and while there are tears streaking her face, there is also anger, and determination. I yank Bonesaw away as the shrubbery next to her explodes into thorns and acid. The weeping willow constricts, branches weaving together to form a protective cage around the 'healer'. Clawed tentacles erupt from the other trees nearby, far too thick and fibrous for me to cut with the knives I'm carrying right now. Every blade of grass turns inside out to reveal serrated teeth.

So that was what the feeling was. I throw Bonesaw over my shoulder and turn to run, keeping well away from any trees or bushes. The grass-teeth are far sharper than they have any right to be, and I have no doubt I'm leaving bloody footprints behind. I rather liked those shoes, too.

"I love it!" Bonesaw exclaims happily. "It's so pretty!"

A gravel path up ahead promises salvation. Or... if I was her, would I leave such an easy way to escape my sharktooth grass? No, instead of stepping on the path, I leap across. As I sail over it the ground falls away to reveal a line of monstrous insects the size of cattle lurking below. Antlions? When I land safely on the other side they start clawing their way out of their pit traps to give chase.

There's a strange burning feeling all over my body.

"Flesh-eating pollen?" Bonesaw says. She claps her hands in glee. "I knew she had it in her!"

"Could you-"

A white fog erupts from Bonesaw's body, surrounding us both. When it dissipates, the burning feeling is gone. Leaving only one slight complication.

"I'm blind," I remark, though I don't stop running.

"I'll steer!" Bonesaw says. She clambers up onto my shoulders, then starts pulling on my left ear. "Tentacle trees ahead!"

---

"That was amazing," Bonesaw says as she fiddles around in my eye socket. "That had to be better than whatever test you had in mind, right? She can join now, can't she?"

The world explodes into random colors before settling down into a moldy, half-ruined apartment as she reattaches my optic nerve. Not somewhere I'd like to spend any length of time, but this is just a quick stop for a fresh set of eyes before rejoining the others.

"We won't be recruiting her just yet, I don't think. No, it's time for us to move on." She was indeed magnificent, and embraced her true powers much quicker than I expected. But there are practical considerations.

"Why?" She adds a pout to her frown of concentration as she reattaches the various little muscles to my new eyeball. "If she isn't ready yet, I want to help her!"

"Now now, poppet. You've already shown her the way, wouldn't you want her to develop her art on her own? Besides, she needs to calm down a bit before we approach her again, or she might start releasing doom plagues. Could you win a doom plague duel against your 'big sister?'"

"I..." Bonesaw bites her lip. "Maybe?"

"Mhm. And would there be anyone else left for you to practice your art on, when you were done?"

"Fine!" She rips out my other eye with a bit more force than is strictly necessary. "But we're coming back soon!"

"Of course." The heroes will thoroughly disown her after that little display in the park, and what villains remain will shun her out of fear. By the time we come back she might join up from sheer loneliness.

Despite my reassurances, Bonesaw remains sullen throughout the remainder of the operation, and is still pouting as she offers me a mirror.

"I like the color," I decide. "Much obliged!" I give my trussed-up donor a friendly slap on the back.

Daniel Snuts · Aug 26, 2022

Keeping your conscience clean as a member of the S9 looks like it's going to be shockingly easy. Your fellows are just so eager. All you had to do as you stopped for gas was to be slightly slow to unbuckle your seatbelt. To pause and stretch as you got out of the car. By the time you catch up to the crowd, the only survivors are the ones Bonesaw called dibs on.

You join them in ransacking the service station for snacks. It's not even theft, because the previous owners are dead through no fault of your own. Oh, what's this? Krystal KlearTM brand spring water? At $7.99 per carbon-neutral designer glass bottle, it's something only the most punchable hipster imaginable would buy.

"They've got my brand!" you exclaim happily, and grab an entire pallet with a mind-hand. Yes, you're fully aware that it's chemically indistinguishable from any other potable water. But precisely because it's shunned by every human being with even the vaguest sense of fiscal responsibility or shame, it's not sold in very many places. Which gives you an excuse to lug it around.

Any other non-crazy recruit would, you suspect, be a nervous wreck right about now. Surrounded by unstable killers, wondering which one is going to snap and turn on their comrades in a murderous frenzy. You don't have this problem, because you already know who it is.

It's you.

---

Jack's secret combat Thinker power is incredibly paranoid, you've discovered. It's constantly pinging every single member of the S9, even when you're not in a combat situation and despite you being nominal allies. It doesn't even stop when they're asleep, or when Jack is asleep.

Which gives you a free eight hours worth of power study per day, because you don't sleep. Standing next to the people who do and staring at them all night doesn't even make you the creepiest person in the room. In that sense, joining the S9 worked out perfectly: You have more access to powers than you could possibly need.

You say more than you need, because even if you don't need sleep, you clearly still need free time. Past a certain point your brain just zones out and stops being productive no matter how long you stare at parahumans.

You should find a power to fix that.

Jack's current objective appears to be padding your numbers back towards the 9 range. Rather than engage in another grand production like the one in Brockton Bay, he's simply tracking down villains who are already bloodthirsty psychos and fast-tracking their recruitment process. Your general tardiness continues to keep your hands more or less clean, and no one is expected to spend more than a token effort on testing the recruits.

Really, your biggest issue with the S9 lifestyle so far is that you keep gaining weight. Not because of a poor diet, but because every so often Bonesaw knocks you out and installs another pound or two of metal. Not that you're complaining about free state-of-the-art subdermal armor. No, it's mostly the spinal override control harness that bothers you.

At least she was happy to make everything shapeshifting-compatible, on the condition that you donate your body to mad science when you die. You were happy to agree, because it's not as if she wouldn't desecrate your corpse without your consent. Nor are you quite religious enough to confidently say that undeath doesn't beat the alternative.

---

Fun fact: Jack doesn't have two powers. His knife-beams are actually the same kind of 'ping' his Thinker power uses to keep track of threats, just with a million times the power behind them.

You figured that out two days ago, but gave it no further thought. It's the Thinker part that makes him dangerous, after all. But as always your painstakingly constructed copy of his power twists as it settles into your soul, and this time you clearly see the Thinker aspects being torn away. You got knife-beams without benefits, didn't you?

You get up and head outside, moving quietly to avoid waking anyone. Now to confirm that... You make a token attempt to fire knife-beams using only your bare hands. It doesn't work, but it could have. You've had far stranger power mutations. You summon your knife, and slash at a tree some five yards away. A stream of golden fire shoots out from your knife and blasts halfway through the trunk.

Huh. That's a lot less subtle than Jack's invisible knife-beams. But it's also a lot more damage than a knife would do to a tree. As trade-offs go, you'll happily take it.

Maybe the golden fire thing is an effect of being channeled through an orichalcum blade, though? It certainly shares the color. You dismiss your knife pick up a stick from the ground, then thrust it like a rapier at nothing in particular. Another blast of golden fire roars from the tip, and travels a hundred feet or so before dissipating. About the same range as your mind-hands, give or take. You wonder if that's a coincidence, or an inherent limitation of your Trump meta-power.

---

Just like with Lisa, now that you've fully comprehended Jack's Thinker power you can interpret what it's telling him. Turns out he isn't a combat Thinker so much as a 'danger' Thinker. Which makes him a combat Thinker too, because combat is dangerous. But his power tracks far more abstract threats as well.

Like people planning to betray him.

You'd panic, but the other day Bonesaw complained to you about your predecessor Cherish, who was going to betray the S9 but got herself killed before she could put her plan into action. Bonesaw was really upset that she missed out on their carefully planned and artistically crafted counter-betrayal. She was really looking forward to it.

So, Jack knows that you're going to stab him in the back as soon as you've gotten what you want from the S9. And now that you know that he knows, he also knows that you know that he knows. But you're going ahead regardless, because you have no other choice. And Jack is going to let you, because he's excited to find out what you're going to do.

He doesn't know, because his power isn't precognition or deduction. It's constantly scanning the intentions of everyone around him, and doesn't give detail beyond 'plans to kill you at some point in the future'. Hell, you don't know how you're going to kill him yet. But Jack is eagerly anticipating the day when you try, and utterly confident he can beat you when you do.

Poltergeist won't try to kill you in your sleep, it whispers as he goes to bed at night. Nor will she try to run away. A self-fulfilling prophecy. You won't try, because he'd find out if you would, and kill you before you could.

You wonder if Bonesaw was trying to subtly warn you off. Did Jack tell her? Does she like you that much?

---

We're just about to board the Pendragon when they show up: The two remaining members of Bitten, as well as a young man in civilian clothes (his face is largely covered by bandages, but judging by the visible burns on his exposed skin this is not an attempt to hide his identity). I send a warning ping to Colin's suit, causing him to turn around and level his halberd at them.

"Whoa, easy there," Imp says, holding up her left hand in a conciliatory gesture (her right hand rests on the ground - it, and the oversized arm it's attached to, clearly used to belong to Crawler). "S-class truce, yeah?"

"Explain," Colin says.

"We heard you were going after the S9-"

"Where?"

"Oh, you know. Around." While she's talking, I compose and send off a quick message to the PRT warning them of a leak. "Anyway, we're coming with."

"No you're not."

"Yes we are."

"No y- why?"

I shoot Colin an exasperated glance - not that he can tell beneath the armor. It's obvious enough what happened to them, between the burns and the arm. It's true that there were no reports of Bitten tangling with the S9... But communications are always spotty in the wake of Shatterbird, and they have a history of pitting recruits against their former teammates. Of course Imp wants revenge - or so I thought, but her answer surprises me.

"Uh, hello? They took our boss, of course we're gonna rescue her. 's called loyalty."

"You expect me to believe that thing is capable of loyalty?" Colin growls, gesturing angrily towards Ghost - the former Shadow Stalker.

"You never tried to find out," Ghost retorts. "Submission was always good enough for you."

I lay a hand on Colin's shoulder before he can continue the argument. "We could always use more help," I say. There's a fair chance they will die on this mission, I send over a private channel, feeling guilty as I do so. Both statements are true, I just wish the first one was enough to convince him on its own.

"They'll just slow us down," Colin says. "And Poltergeist joined the S9."

"Pshyeah, right," Imp scoffs. "That's what she wants them to think. She's just waiting for the right moment to turn on them. She's not a joiner."

If that's true, if we have a potential asset inside the S9, it's worth bringing them along for that alone, I send. Out loud, I say "If you're wrong, if they have turned her, we'll expect you to execute her kill order like any other."

"No prob, won't happen," Imp says cheerfully, and starts walking up the ramp. The others follow her.

Colin moves to block their path. "Who's he?" he asks, indicating the bandaged man.

"Oh, don't mind him. He does the sex with us."

"He what?" Colin is taken off guard by this frank declaration.

"Uh, you do know about 'the sex', right? See, when a mommy and a daddy-"

"He's not coming along."

"Why not? You are."

"Excuse me?"

Instead of answering him directly, Imp turns to me. "You've killed people from the S9 before, right?"

"Three of them," I confirm. "Miasma, Carn-"

"See?" she interrupts, turning back to Colin. "Everyone who's killed an S9 member gets to bring their boytoy on the road trip, them's the rules. She's bringing you, I'm bringing him."

"You did not kill a S9 member," Colin says.

"Yeah? Tell that to Hatchet Face- oh wait! You can't, because I killed him."

Nothing they've said so far has tripped the lie detector, I remind Colin. At least now we have confirmation of what happened to Hatchet Face, if not Cherish or Mannequin.

Colin grimaces, conceding my point - but not Imp's. "I'm not a boytoy."

"You keep telling yourself that, champ."

"I've been an active parahuman longer than your entire team combined!"

"Fat lot of good that did against the S9. Heard you got your leg cut off." I compose another message for the PRT, emphasizing the severity of the leak. Imp casually shrugs her right shoulder. "I admit I got a bit cut up myself - but only one of us walked away with Crawler's wanking arm as a trophy."

She places the palm of said arm against Colin's chest, attempting to push him aside. "Come on Pierre, Ghost. We're wasting daylight."

Colin does not move. "That's not his real name," he says, the lie detector finally having pinged on something Imp said.

"No shit it's not his real name," Imp says. "I don't know his real name. He wants to be called Pierre, I'mma call him Pierre. Now scoot." No lies.

We're seriously letting them aboard? Colin sends to me, but he steps back and allows the Bitten to enter the craft along with their plus one.

I shrug. Rather than reiterate old arguments, I send Should we not rejoice when villains step up to do the right thing? He grunts in response.

"Swanky," is Imp's verdict about the interior. They stake out the second row of seats, Imp on the right and the young man - Pierre - in the middle, so that each girl can throw a (human) arm around his shoulders. He leans back, looking incredibly smug about this.

"Are you sure you want to come along?" I ask him while Colin goes through the preflight checks. "It's going to be dangerous."

"I can't just leave the girls alone, you know," he says, causing the girls in question to coo at him. "Just look at how adorable they are." This second declaration draws growls instead.

"I told you," Imp says. "I'm badass, not adorable."

"Of course you are," he says indulgently. Perhaps I'm not the best judge of such things, but I get the impression that their relationship is deeper than a mere sexual arrangement. If nothing else, he's willing to join them in chasing after Burnscar before his injuries have even healed, his voice still raspy from smoke inhalation.

He won't fight personally, of course, but when we catch up to them I won't have time to drop him off before engaging. I've lost craft to the S9 before.

"You seem good together," I say. Colin may be sulking, but if we're going to be working together we should try to get along.

"You know it. I like my women the way I like my coffee - silent and in the kitchen." Both girls remove their arms from his shoulders and thwack him upside the head, almost in synch - but gently, and carefully avoiding the bandaged areas. "Ow. I meant 'black and hot'. And bad for my blood pressure."

"Are you... in a relationship... with Poltergeist as well?" I ask.

"Nah," Pierre responds cheerfully. "She prefers to watch."

"Shut up," Ghost hisses.

Kids these days, Colin sends to me.

They're technically older than I am, I respond, though I don't dispute the sentiment.

---

A second argument breaks out when Imp won't stop kicking the back of Colin's seat. Pierre catches my eye with a wry smile as we pull them apart.

"Children, eh?" he says, despite surely not being of legal age himself. It makes both of them bristle and turn on him, which at least distracts them from each other.

After Jack, your next target is... Murder Rat? Yeah, Murder Rat. Her sell-by date clearly came and went a while ago, so it's now or never. She's broken down to the point her powers are going out of control, teleporting her in random directions (though usually only a few inches) and ravaging her own flesh. Really convenient for you, in other words - provided you can finish before she dies.

Fortunately Bonesaw also takes an interest when she discovers the self-ravaging, and steps up her maintenance schedule. "She's overcoming her Manton limitation without a second trigger!" she exclaims happily. "I have to study this!"

That's an... optimistic view of things. You didn't lie to Faultline. Manton limits are inherent to the structure of a power. It's less 'overcoming' and more that the various power-controlling regions of Murder Rat's brain(s) are rotting at different rates. Not that this deters Bonesaw, who is cheerfully sketching out a series of experiments involving carefully targeted brain damage for the next time she has spare capes on hand.

---

A third argument breaks out when Imp wants to stop for the night.

"We're not stopping," Colin says. "If you need to sleep, recline the seats."

"Nuh uh," Imp says. "We need real beds. And showers, and food that isn't your gross nutrient paste."

"Every minute you waste is another-"

Colin, be reasonable, I send. They do not have your enhancements.

"We'll drop you off at a motel," I say out loud. "We'll keep going, and I'll detail another vehicle to pick you up in the morning."

---

"Sleep tight," I say.

"No peeping," Imp responds. "Old boring people like you, you'd have heart attacks if you saw the kinky shit we got up to." She shuts the door to their motel room.

"Do you think they'll peep on us anyway?" Pierre whispers to her, inside.

"Of course they will," she responds at normal volume. "They're heroes. No sense of right and wrong."

Despite her words, Imp takes off her mask. Oh. Oh dear. Imp is Aisha Laborn. Colin must never find out.

"Please," Ghost says. "I can't- I can't..." Her whole body is trembling.

"Shhh, shhh, we got you." Pierre gently helps the shaking girl out of her clothes, while Imp fetches - are those manacles? - from her backpack. She looks around the room, but ultimately can't seem to find what she's looking for.

"No respect for kinky people," Imp mutters.

It appears she was looking for a secure attachment point for the manacles, because in the end they carry bedding into the bathroom and chain Ghost to the toilet. She relaxes as soon as the manacles close around her wrists and neck. A small red light on the collar starts blinking. Tinkertech, to restrain her shadow form?

"There," Imp says. But rather than do anything 'kinky', she leaves. Pierre remains, stroking Ghost's hair.

"You're safe now, aren't you?" he says.

Ghost nods.

"No way you could get free?"

Ghost shakes her head.

"We won't let you hurt anyone else, promise. Now try to get some sleep?"

Ghost shakes her head again.

"Look-", Pierre begins.

More insistent head-shaking.

"Those things aren't good for you, you know," he says, but when Ghost keeps looking at him he sighs and gets up.

He goes to fetch a pair of pills and a glass of water. High strength sleeping pills, according to the packaging, though the name on the prescription label has been scribbled over, and two tablets is definitely not the recommended dose for a girl Ghost's size.

She eagerly swallows them, though, and curls up in her blankets. She's crying. She put up a brave front earlier, but in private there's not a hint of the angry, abrasive girl Colin used to complain about. What did the S9 do to her?

Imp, meanwhile, has constructed something like a pillow fort to contain her inhuman arm as she lies on the bed. A bandage on her right leg suggest that she may have injured herself on the claws previously.

"It hurts," she whispers when Pierre joins her in bed. "It never stops hurting."

"Shhh," Pierre says, cuddling up to her. "We'll figure something out."

"Well?" Colin says, distracting me from the camera feeds.

"Nothing you need to know about," I say, shaking my head.

He raises an eyebrow. "That kinky, huh?"

Shatterbird has been incredibly smug ever since you left Brockton Bay. With some justification. A bunch of members died, and they only got one recruit out of it. Her recruit.

"Thanks for the tips," you say softly. "They really helped with passing the tests." That's a lie. They would have, if you'd been smart enough to understand them.

Shatterbird nods magnanimously, still smug.

"I'll have to repay you somehow," you continue. Smug, smug, smug. "Maybe put in a good word with Jack. Get him to see that a certain person is not just a teammate, but also a beautiful young woman?" Smug turns into stricken.

"How could you tell?" she demands in a very loud whisper, grabbing you by the shoulders.

"Woman's intuition," you lie. "Don't worry, I'll make him realize what he's been missing out on."

"Do you really think you could?"

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Bonesaw (sort of): Subcutaneous Armor Plating
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

Taylor hasn't studied Bonesaw. Subcutaneous Armor Plating is an alchemical charm - that is to say, it's a magitech device you can install in an alchemical exalt (alchemicals are cyborg-golems). Or in regular people, if you happen to be Bonesaw.

In the morning I take Imp aside for a moment.

"Look, does Ghost need-"

"You saw nothing, copper," Imp interrupts. "Nothing admissible in court."

"That's not-"

"Nothing, you hear?" she emphasizes, poking my armor in the chest with a Crawler claw.

I shake my head sadly, and let the matter drop. I want to help, but if they don't want help...

Daniel Snuts · Aug 29, 2022

With a pair of throwaway murderous scrubs bringing the Slaughterhouse back to 8 members, recruitment standards become somewhat more stringent, more elaborately ritualistic - circumstances permitting.

Usually they'd celebrate the beginning of a recruitment drive by culling the excess cape population of the city. But Stafford has exactly three capes, two of which have already been set aside for use as props during the recruitment of the third. So they just round up and murder a bunch of random civilians instead.

(Three is actually a ridiculously high number for such a small town - easily 3 times the capes per capita of Brockton Bay in its prime)

"You're not playing with the other children," Jack observes, sitting down next to you at the edge of killing fields. Now that you're doing proper Slaughterhouse stuff again, your murder-reticence has become more obvious.

"Not much point, is there?" you say with a shrug. A mind-hand shoots out to murder a token innocent. Your conscience is clean, Siberian would have caught him in another second or two. Siberian turns around to glare at you, but on seeing you in conversation with Jack she just huffs and sets off after another victim.

"I notice you're not partaking either," you say. "So I'm guessing you feel the same way."

Jack flicks a knife beam to disembowel a young woman in the same off-handed manner you did. "Perhaps I just enjoy seeing the kids have fun."

"Oh please," you scoff. You gesture at where Shatterbird is experimenting with different ways of flaying people alive. "Just one look at Shatterbird proves that to be a lie. It's painfully obvious what she wants from you, and equally obvious that you're not giving it to her." You turn around to look him in the eyes. "Erectile dysfunction in a man your age usually signifies a fundamental unhappiness with their current lifestyle."

Jack looks absolutely stunned for a moment. Then he throws his head back and laughs. He laughs and laughs, slapping his knee as if you'd just told him the funniest joke in the world. You can't quite keep an answering grin off you lips, the sheer intensity of his mirth contagious despite everything.

Jack wants to leave a legacy that lasts forever.

Still chuckling, he gets up and walks into the killing fields. Victims and murderers both get out of his way as he walks, and he acknowledges the presence of neither. He stops beneath where Shatterbird is hovering and gestures for her to approach. When she does, he gently removes her mask. You see her lips starting to form a question before he grasps her face and pulls her into a kiss.

She goes rigid with shock for a moment, but quickly rallies and enthusiastically kisses him back, the glass of her costume sliding aside to let her rub her body against his. You'd give her a thumbs up, but you're all out of thumbs. Her glass wings bend down to enfold them both, gathering them up and carrying them away.

You allow yourself a small smile. He laughed so hard because his power told him that you goading him towards Shatterbird was part of your plan to kill him. Somehow. How could he not go along with it? So far your ongoing betrayal is providing him with excellent entertainment.

---

You lounge on the couch as the rest of the S9 trickle in, covered in gore.

"Anyone carrying any glass?" you ask. "Electronics? I'd get rid of it if I were you."

"Why?" Bonesaw asks. "Shatterbird already sang."

You gesture at the center of the table, where you've placed a single shard of glass and taped down an upturned wire mesh colander over it. The shard vibrates against the table, occasionally flying this way or that to bounce off the walls of its cage.

"Shatterbird is a bit distracted right now, and not entirely in control of her actions."

As if on cue, a loud feminine moan comes from the other room.

Bonesaw immediately claps her hands over her ears, her cheeks turning pink. "L-lewd!"

"Yes! Yes! Don't stop!" Shatterbird cries out, heedless of who she might be traumatizing.

Bonesaw stomps her foot in anger. "Jack is being a bad daddy!" she declares loudly enough to be heard through the door. "Innocent ears should not have to hear that sort of thing!"

Shatterbird responds with a drawn-out mantra, interspersed with gasps and punctuated by a wordless, ecstatic scream. "أتعهد بصدق وإخلاص أن أكون لك زوجة مطيعة ومخلصة"

You have no idea what that means, but the punctuation is enough to send Bonesaw fleeing back outside, hands still clamped over her ears.

---

Damsel of Distress is a comedy villain, sort of like Uber and Leet were. And sort of not, because a quick interview reveals that she has the same soul price as Aisha: She wants to be respected and feared. The comedy stems from how earnestly she tries, and how abjectly she fails.

'Haha, the look on her face when she accidentally blew up the loot from her heist!'

'Remember when she started crying halfway through a cape fight and the heroes stopped and bought her a cup of cocoa?'

Hilarious, no? Now imagine what that feels like from inside.

A lot (but far from all) of the blame can be placed on her power. She fires blasts of spatial distortions that... well, that can do anything from lightly muss your hair to turn your skull inside out, completely at random. It doesn't exactly help that she can't aim for shit, or that she tends to suffer from power incontinence whenever she's stressed or excited.

Attached to a slightly less incompetent person, it would make for a terrifyingly unpredictable threat.

"Anyone who's a fan of Damsel of Distress can come with me instead," you announce to the roomful of raw materials Bonesaw has gathered. She appears to be trying to develop her own version of containment foam, and has moved on to the human testing phase. It seems to be containing people quite well, even if she hasn't quite gotten the 'breathable' part down quite yet. Or the 'not flesh-melting' part.

"Who're you?" someone asks.

You shrug. "I'm not Bonesaw."

"I'm a fan!" "I love Damsel of Distress!" "Me too!"

"Your username and password at dodfanclub.com, please," you tell the first person to arrive in front of you.

"Uh..."

"Mine's MisterMysterious!" A young man shouts from behind him. "Capital M's, no spaces! Password is 123465!"

You write that down, but you're going to have to travel to the next town over to find out if he's telling the truth. Shatterbird is hell on internet access. "I'm going to send you back to Bonesaw if you lie," you warn everyone present, "and tell her you've been extra naughty."

---

Damsel's face is streaked with tears, and she's clearly favoring one leg as she walks. But on seeing you she squares her shoulders and grits her teeth, clearly ready to take this recruitment test seriously. It makes her smarter than you, in certain respects.

"This is your fan club," you tell Damsel.

"Do I have to... kill them all?"

"That's up to you. Do you read dodfanclub.com?"

"No. They're..."

"They're a bit mean, aren't they?" you say. Damsel nods.

You gesture towards a kid, about ten years old. Username BigRedPants, page one of your printouts. "'Lololololol,'" you read in a monotone. "'Worst villain evar. My dad could beat her up - no, my little sister could beat her up lol.' Another post: 'I think they don't throw her in jail because they want someone to laugh at.' Another: 'No, I think she's smarter than a goldfish lol. If the goldfish is dead lolololol.'"

Damsel advances on the kid.

"No, please! I was wrong! You're a great villain! You're really scary!"

"You really think so?" Damsel asks, more hopefully than menacingly. The kid nods fervently, and pisses himself for emphasis.

"Are you sorry for what you wrote?"

"Yes! Please don't hurt me!"

"Well if you're really sorry, I shall... spare you?" The statement turns into a question, as she looks at you for confirmation. You shrug in response. Up to her.

She rests a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Yes, I'll-" That's when her power goes off on its own, as it's wont to do, and the kid's head turns inside out with a blorp. There are screams of terror from the audience. Damsel stands there blinking in shock for a few moments, before bending over and throwing up.

You give her a moment to gather herself as her heaving gives way to crying.

"Ready for the next one?" you ask.

To her credit she stands up, wipes at her eyes and snorts to clear her nose. Everyone cringes away against the far wall as she raises a shaking hand. "What did he write?" she asks, pointing at the young man who went by MisterMysterious.

"'I love her, she's so cute. I love her silky hair and that little frown she makes when she's concentrating on something.'"

A small smile creeps onto Damsel's face, and she bashfully looks away. MisterMysterious, meanwhile, is pale and shaking. He remembers writing that post.

"'She ain't got much in the way of tits,'" you quote further, "'but I'd love to shove my dick between those pouty-'"

With a scream of rage, Damsel blorps... the woman standing next to MisterMysterious, because she can't aim for shit. The woman collapses, bleeding and screaming but still alive.

"Aw, you didn't let me finish telling you how much he likes your hair. Did you know that 'hairjobs' were a thing?"

"Shut up!" Damsel keeps blorping things until MisterMysterious is dead and all the screaming has stopped.

"Please!" Another young man throws himself on his hands and knees in front of her. "Please have mercy!"

Damsel looks at you, and you shuffle your printouts to the proper entry. "Ah yes. He doesn't talk much shit, but his signature is 'PM me for pics of the Western Exchange Wardrobe Malfunction.'"

"I'm sorry! I'll never jerk off to those again! Don't kill me!"

Blorp

"As for her-"

Blorp

"Oh dear. She just wanted to bake you cookies and cuddle you until you joined the heroes."

Blorp blorp blorp blorp

---

Jack gives you a strange look. He knows you're a traitor who doesn't subscribe to the Slaughterhouse 9 ethos. Yet your test for Damsel was exactly the kind of gruesome anti-psychiatry a true believer would come up with. He approves. And he has no idea why you did that.

No wonder he can't figure it out: You had no ulterior motive. You genuinely felt bad for Damsel and wanted to help her. To let her be feared and respected as a true member of the S9, however briefly.

---

Murder Rat is done. You can't teleport. Ergo, you must be able to inflict terrible wounds. But how the hell are you going to test that without either doing something morally indefensible or tipping off the S9 that you're getting new powers?

(You can, in fact, inflict terrible wounds)

You got that power just in time too, because less than 24 hours later you find out that Jack's power doesn't quite have the range and reaction time to warn against threats approaching in supersonic aircraft. And also that he's somehow managed to piss off Dragon to the point that the scary Canadian is conducting military operations on foreign soil. RIP Murder Rat, taking one for the team by teleporting in front of an incoming missile. It was well past her time.

In Jack's defense, as soon as he realizes what's going on his Thinker power lets you pull off 8/9ths of the most bullshit fucking escape ever. RIP Genoscythe, dissolved into nothing by some sort of flesh-eating tinkertech fog (nanomachines?). He died as he lived, committing pointless atrocities.

But the most interesting part of the encounter is the glimpse you catch inside the cockpit of Dragon's aircraft. Too far away to make out faces (masks), but you'd recognize those powers anywhere. This changes everything.

It also puts you on one hell of a timer, even if Jack's being more careful now. Good thing you got a head start on Siberian's power during your initiation.

---

You suppose this is a good news, bad news kind of thing.

Good news, despite knowing the truth about Siberian, despite having to sneak off to covertly peek on Tiger Mom (who, as it turns out, is really a Tiger Dad) to fully understand the power... some part of your brain still thought of her as a Brute. Specifically, the part that (probably) subconsciously shapes the expression of your copied powers.

Because as far as you can tell, instead of a Master power you now have a Brute power even stronger than Lung's. Gazing into your soul and comparing the two, they definitely share a lot of 'target own body' circuitry. And turning into an unstoppable force yourself is obviously a lot better than summoning an unstoppable ally.

Bad news, just like Lung's it refuses to activate on its own. It had better fucking trigger on pact-sealing, once you're in a position to seal pacts without blowing your cover.

"I found this security footage," Colin says. "It's rather gruesome, but you should see it." He addresses this last statement to Imp.

"'s fine," Imp says. "Already puked my share today." Pierre rubs her shoulders comfortingly. She's by far the most sensitive of her team, but she has been getting better at keeping her food down as we comb through the aftermaths.

There's no sound, but the black-and-white footage shows Poltergeist dancing in front of an audience of crying hostages. Her mind-hands twirl about in hypnotic patterns to accompany her physical movements... and every so often, they reach out to grab a member of the audience and loft them above her head. With the same graceful, sweeping motions they are cut open, showering Poltergeist in their blood.

"Tell me again how she hasn't turned," Colin says.

Imp shakes her head in denial. Then something seems to occur to her. "Wait, go back. No, further back. Not that far. Gah, just give me the remote."

After some scrubbing back and forth, she settles on the frame she wants. She points at the blood spray suspended in the air. "There. That's a letter. She's sending us a message!"

Colin scoffs, but I realize that I recognize the symbol: It was present on Smith's paper strips.

"What language is that?" I ask. I did send a message asking Myrddin about it, but he never got back to me.

"Language?" Imp says. "It's English, just with different letters. That's an 'S'. Hang on." She steps forward through the video. "That's an I. B. Sib- sibp... sibpr... don't puke, don't puke ...sibproj? 3... 0... 8... B... D... bdlu?"

She stops the video and turns to face the rest of us. "It says 'sibproj three hundred and eight bdlu,'" she announces.

"English," Colin scoffs. "You're making this up."

"If I was making it up, I'd invent something that makes sense!"

"She's not making it up," I say. I recognize every single letter, if not the numbers. With her partial translation, I should be able to finally discover the contents of Smith's... incantation? With such a simple substitution, it takes barely a millisecond for my decryption module to return its result.

Error code 8001: NO MATCH

Oh. Examining the detailed output, it's clear that Smith's message was not in English, or any other known language. But then, neither is 'bdlu'. Do we need to track down Smith to translate the message? He didn't respond when I sent him the report on Smaug's performance in the Leviathan fight, nor has he been answering his phone. His phone that is an integral part of his costume. I'm starting to fear the worst.

"Did Poltergeist know Smith?" I ask.

"In the biblical sense? Probably." Ghost fails to hold back a snort of amusement at Imp's answer. Oh dear. How old is Poltergeist? Will I have to arrest Smith even as I request his help? "She has this golden amulet - no idea what it does, but I'm pretty sure it's Smith's work."

"Do you have any way of contacting Smith?" I ask.

"Nope."

"This is a waste of time," Colin says.

"You shut up!" Imp shouts. "It means something! sibproj... sibproj... Sib... Siberian? Proj... ection? Siberian is a projection!?"

Even as she speaks, my own pattern recognition module throws up a result. "308 BDLU is the license plate of a white panel van registered to Georgios Sopka of Tallahassee, Florida." A swarm of web spiders are sent out, and quickly return with results on that name. "Georgios died in the S9 attack on Tallahassee in 2004. No change in ownership has been registered since then, nor has the vehicle been listed as destroyed. Stand by." Other subroutines start going through years of traffic camera footage from all over the country, looking for a match.

"The Siberian drives around in a child molester van?" Pierre says dryly. "You learn something new every day."

"Traffic cameras put the van near Houston in September 2006, and Phoenix in March 2008," I report. "And Boise in June 2009. Statistical modeling shows 82% probability the van has been shadowing the movements of the S9."

"Hah!" Imp says, pointing a finger at Colin. "Told you she was on our side!"

This is invaluable intel. I send to Colin. Will you finally admit that bringing Bitten along was worth it?

"We just watched her kill 14 people in cold blood," Colin says.

"Yeah, and we barely understood her message!" Imp counters. "If she'd turned evil, she'd have used more letters."

---

It's a typical lazy afternoon in the Slaughterhouse Nine. Jack is napping on the couch. Siberian is giving Bonesaw a piggyback ride, round and round the house on noiseless feet. Burnscar is playing with a lighter, because of course she is.

Shatterbird is reading. Something thick and Russian, though you don't recognize the author. Literature for people who consider Dostoevsky to be for scrubs. You and Damsel are having tea. Your three mind-hands maneuver the teapot and both cups, since neither of you have regular hands up to the task - Bonesaw fixed her power incontinence and aiming issues by turning her fingers into 3-foot long power-guiding antennae/claws.

Skinslip is doing his thing, flaying the original inhabitants of the house alive and attaching sheets of their skin to himself. Now there's a power you have no interest in copying. A more classic example of the Slaughterhouse 9 genre, not just inherently evil but also incredibly gross. It's not even an unbounded growth power like your own or Dauntless's (RIP Dauntless), because the extra skin keeps rotting and constantly needs to be replaced.

Other than him, though, it's a strangely normal/idyllic scene. A side of the S9 most people don't see (because they're all dead). A discerning eye could pick up all kinds of detail not commonly known.

Take Jack, for example. Not quite as deranged a novelty-seeker as the one he plays on TV, for such a man could not nap so contentedly. The patriarch of your little band, and not just in the leadership sense. A family man living in well-worn grooves, on some level aware that he could just leave it all behind, yet ever choosing not to.

Siberian, the mom to Jack's dad. The most shameless pervert you've ever heard of (not just the exhibitionism, but also her fetish for hunting people down and eating them raw), yet she handles the shards of Bonesaw's cracked innocence with motherly care. And isn't that a chuckle, when you know what's behind the mask?

Burnscar? ...yeah, no. That one, at least, has no more depth than a sheet of paper (the paper is on fire).

Shatterbird genuinely does enjoy her literature, which is not to say that she doesn't enjoy the feelings of smug intellectual superiority it provides just as much. She would be quite wroth if you were to ever bring up the blushing, lovestruck young bride beneath.

Poor Damsel of Distress, so desperately insecure. It's not an inferiority complex if you truly are inferior. She still considers joining the S9 to be the best decision she ever made, and the saddest thing is that she's probably right. Though it's an open question whether she'd have made it if her recruitment had involved more than 0 competitors.

And you. You suppose it says things about you as well, that you fit in so readily despite not being a psychotic murderer yourself.

Then Siberian disappears. Bonesaw falls to the ground, but considering how much cybernetic reinforcement she's packing, it probably hurts the floor more than her. You still rush towards her, a look of concern on your face. The sound of an explosion reaches you before you arrive.

Yep, it's go time. Faultline's amulet materializes around your neck. "Are you all right?" you ask, reaching out a stump to touch her. The instant you make contact, you heal her mind.

She reacts the way any mentally healthy 12-year-old would react to realizing that they were Bonesaw all along: Helpless despair. She curls up in a fetal position, letting out a long hopeless wail as she remembers everything she's done from her new, sane perspective. Everything she enjoyed doing. And like that, the only person with access to your spinal control harness is taken off the playing field.

You throw yourself to the side, barely avoiding the invisible knife edge that gouges the floor where you were crouching. The sleeper has awakened, and he is not amused.

Jack stares at you for a long second, and you calmly meet his gaze. His secret Thinker power and yours jostle against each other, closing off potential futures as they race towards inevitability. He will know everything you're going do before you do it. You will know everything he knows as soon as he learns it.

You can't beat him. You both know that already. But you can survive for quite a while, if you give up all thought of offense. If you form no intention for him to grasp, and merely react to his initiative. You'll lose eventually, that much hasn't changed. But your backup is coming. He doesn't know how much time he has before they arrive, because you don't know either.

He knew this day was coming, of course. He let it happen, because he didn't know what form your betrayal would take, and he is almost as deranged a novelty seeker as he pretends to be. Well, your opening move just took out his two most important pieces. What now, Jack?

He glances around at the lesser members, who are still getting to their feet in varying states of confusion. He knows you did something, another trump card. But he can't tell what, because you genuinely have no expectation of it hurting him, and so it does not affect your potential actions right now. But then why would you do it? What is he missing? Where is the trap?

"Well played," he says. Then he scoops Bonesaw up and jumps out the window. He hits the ground running. You nod to yourself. The prime directive of his Thinker power is to preserve his own life. He's rebuilt the S9 from scratch before, he can do it again.

"Heroes incoming," you shout. "Plan B!" Looking at Shatterbird's face, you can see her heart break in real time. Leaving only Loyalty.

"Jack is going to betray us," Poltergeist says.

"He's not," I counter, a flat statement of fact.

"Dragon is hunting us. He knows he can't beat her, so he's going to sacrifice the rest of us to her. Killing us will satisfy her enough to give up the chase. Then he'll lie low for a bit, start over with new people."

I don't even dignify that with a response, and instead try to push past her. She holds out her arm to stop me.

"I have a plan for surviving that," she insists. "I'm doing you a favor, letting you in on it."

"Don't care." Responding to my will, a curtain of glass forms between us and pushes her away.

"Look," she says, sounding exasperated, "let's say the odds are tiny. Minuscule. The vast majority of fire extinguishers never get used, but people keep them around the house anyway. Would it hurt, to have plan for not dying?"

"Fine," I growl. "Tell me your plan B." I know full well it won't be of any use, but if it makes her leave me alone...

Burnscar never figures out what is happening before hundreds of colorful glass shards cut her to ribbons. Bonesaw's armor may protect her vital organs from being perforated, but it doesn't stop all her blood from falling out. And pyrokinetic fire immunity means she's the only person in the room whose wounds she can't cauterize. Meanwhile, two of your mind-hands gouge out Skinslip's eyes even as the third throws a potful of scalding hot tea in Damsel's face. It's over in seconds.

"Now the escaping part," you tell Shatterbird. "Grab my water and meet me in the kitchen."

You scribble a quick note for the heroes, then rush into the kitchen. You ransack the cupboards and fridge for anything edible that will keep a couple of days.

Shatterbird enters, levitating the pallet of dumb overpriced water you stole behind her. You've had her do that before just so you could ride it instead of walking. Another alibi for its true purpose.

"Put that on the table." She does. You pile the food on top. "Now, drop everything. Do not use your power at all."

"Uh..." Shatterbird says, glancing down at herself. Her costume is made entirely of levitated glass, and the only mode of travel she ever uses is flight. She's not even wearing shoes.

"I mean it," you say, and toss her your backpack. "There's clothes inside, you can change later."

The glass crashes to the floor. You rest one stump on her now bare shoulder, the other on the supplies, and activate Labyrinth's power.

---

"You were behind the desert all along?" Shatterbird asks. "Who are you?"

"It's a long story. Luckily, I have five days to tell it." A thought occurs to you. Why rely on one Master power, when you have two? "Would you like some stamina while we walk?"

I expected a desperate battle. Not an empty house, three corpses, and an invoice.

Yes, an invoice.

Code:

Kill orders executed
 
1x Mannequin (previous delivery) $  8,200,000
1x Burnscar					  $  5,300,000
1x Skinslip					  $	600,000
1x Damsel of Distress			$	250,000
---------------------------------------------
Total							$ 14,350,000
 
Please have payment ready by 07-04-11
 
See you back in the Bay
<3 Poltergeist
 
PS: Don't forget to pay Imp for Hatchet Face.

"Fucking told you," Imp says.

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Bonesaw (sort of): Subcutaneous Armor Plating x3
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: ???

"I feel bad about Labyrinth," Taylor's player said. "Are you sure there isn't anything I can do to help her?"

"Fine," the DM relented. "In accord with your subconscious desire, the piece of Cecylene you summoned is a full-fledged Manse, not just a Demesne. It produces a Stone of Comfort, which can temporarily heal mental afflictions. Happy?"

"Thanks, I'mma weaponize that!"

It doesn't fucking trigger on pact-sealing.

"You!"

"I'm afraid your vacation is over, Doctor Manton. Door to Containment Area 5B."

Daniel Snuts · Aug 30, 2022

"Huh," you say, staring at the rubble that used to be Alec's lair. "Did you guys do this?"

"Cherish did," Shatterbird says. "Managed to completely screw up her very first- wait, why are we here? Regent was one of your agents?"

"Heh. 'Was.'"

---

You find your minions in the second place you look, ie your own lair. The very first thing you do is walk up to Aisha and boop her with more smarts.

"There you-" boop "-uh? Thanks? I missed you too, but what was that for?"

"What was that for?" you repeat mockingly. "You thought it was a good idea to not only parade Ghost right under Armsmaster's-"

"He's calling himself 'Defiant' now, since he got fired."

"Fired? What for?"

"Uh, hello? The underage prostitute thing?"

Oh right, that whole thing had slipped your mind. "Allow me to rephrase: You thought it was a good idea to not only parade Ghost and yourself right under Defiant's nose, but also to leave Evil Taylor to her own devices?"

"Worked out, didn't it?" Aisha mutters sullenly.

"Point," you admit. Still, you don't like people being so reckless with your things - even if it is the things themselves.

"We specifically didn't tell her what we were doing, so she wouldn't get any bright ideas about anonymous tips," Alec says.

"And where is she now?" Your query is met with shrugs. Wonderful.

"Who's she?" Alec asks, gesturing to the bemused Shatterbird.

---

I watch the footage of Bitten's latest heist. Poltergeist (hands amputated by the S9), Imp (arm amputated by the S9, and replaced with one of Crawler's), Ghost (none the worse for wear, as far as I can tell)... and their newest member, introduced as 'Banshee'.

They're not even trying to hide that fact that it's Shatterbird. She's using the exact same costume as she did in the S9, except made out of brown bottle glass. And instead of flaying people, she's battering them about with levitated spheres of glass. Like something a fortune-teller would use, except also brown.

"That's... very pointedly non-lethal," I observe.

"Are you suggesting we play along with this charade?" Director Tagg demands incredulously. "A change of alias doesn't absolve people of their crimes!"

"Of course not, sir. That's why Colin Wallis is still in custody."

The city has changed a bit in your absence. Since they got back several days ahead of you, your minions are able to fill you in.

"Biggest news is that the Teeth showed up and staked out some former ABB turf," Alec says.

Really? First the S9, now the Teeth? You arrange your legs into lotus position on the couch and hold up your hands in benediction. "The Buddha sits on the mountain, and all things come to him," you say. At this rate you won't ever have to leave Brockton Bay for fresh powers.

"The Merchants and the Empire are holding their own against them so far," Alec continues, ignoring your antics. The former is not surprising, they have a precog. But the latter? How the hell are they holding off the Teeth without capes? "Circus left, Bitch didn't." Bitch? Oh right, Hellhound. Rachel. "Faultline fled the city too."

"Do you know where she went?" you ask, and he shakes his head. "Find out."

There's a cardboard package on my desk. It wasn't there when I sat down, and no one has entered the room since then. The smiley face drawn on the side fails to be reassuring.

No, consider it logically. Whichever Stranger left it could just as easily have attacked me directly, had they wished me harm. Let's see what they want.

Oh. It's the amulet that was stolen. And a note.

Dear Faultline,
Smith would prefer that his products not enter general circulation.
Please be more careful in the future.
Love,
Dog Burglar

It would seem that I owe a favor.

"Oh, and Panacea went nuts and took over Captain's Park."

"Did she now?"

"They're calling it the 'Grove of Flesh' now. No one has entered it and returned."

---

You consider the trees that have sprung up to cover Captain's Park. Bark red as blood, foliage black as sin. Deeper in, you spot glimpses of bone white as well. It's probably bone. You know, from the stripped corpses of those who tried to enter. A rustle among the leaves, and a bladed tentacle shoots out to spear a pigeon on the wing.

Yeah no, you're not going in there. "Panacea!" you shout. "I killed Burnscar!"

Then you wait.

After a couple of minutes, the mistress of the grove appears. She stops a fair distance away from you, as she refuses to leave the treeline and you refuse to get within blade-tentacle range.

"Panacea," she says musingly. "Do they still call me that?"

You shrug. "Dunno, I've been out of touch. Nice dress, by the way. Very meaty." You especially admire the skirt, which is slit dangerously high. Both in the sense that it shows a lot of leg, and in that said slit is lined with three-inch fangs. "Can you see out of its eyes?"

"No, but its reflexes are better than mine anyway. But enough pleasantries. You claim that Burnscar is dead by your hand?"

"Yes and no." You hold out your arm-stumps for inspection. "Which neatly segues into my purpose in coming here."

She narrows her eyes. "You seek a boon."

"I don't think a set of hands is an unreasonable price for avenging your sister. Do you? Oh, and if you could detach Bonesaw's control rods from my spine, that would be nice too."

She's silent as she considers this.

Panacea wants a loving family.

"You may approach," she says eventually. She rests a calming hand on her dress. "Don't make any sudden movements and it won't bite."

You approach, not entirely happily. But her domain, her rules. And it's not as if you won't be at her mercy anyway once she actually touches you. As you walk she caresses a nearby tree, coaxing it to bear fruit. Pulsating, veiny fruit, glistening and ripe with blood. Containing, no doubt, all the nutrients a fleshcrafter needs to craft flesh.

"Don't freak out when you recognize my biology," you request.

She raises a jaded eyebrow as she extends her hand. Her blasé attitude lasts right up until the moment she actually touches you.

"Ilsa!?" she squeaks. The trees rustle and her dress growls as they sense her agitation.

You sigh. You literally just told her not to freak out. "Must we be enemies, Panacea?" you ask instead. "Our every point of contention is dead. And some of them, avenged."

"Tell me how Burnscar died," she demands. So you do. She attaches a blood-fruit to each of your stumps and starts shaping them into hands while you speak.

The funny thing is, you can relate your entire interaction with the S9 without letting on that you're anything more than an uncannily perceptive Changer with mind-hands (and a minor Brute rating, and formerly a wolf companion). It's still more information than you'd like a non-minion to have, but it's the best you can do after she recognized you.

If only that deception didn't require you to leave sorcerer's sight off while she touches you. Will you ever get to actually study her power, that is so much better than you initially thought? Stupid impossible soul prices.

She remains stone-faced throughout your narration... right up until you relate how you approached Bonesaw with healing intent, in order to avoid waking Jack up prematurely. That provokes a small snort of amusement. Of course weaponized healing would speak to her.

"And then we got out of there before Dragon showed up, to avoid any kill order-related misunderstandings," you finish, carefully skipping over the exact mechanics of your escape.

"Jack and Bonesaw still live," she says.

"As far as I know - I imagine it would be all over the news if Dragon caught them."

"There," she says, taking her hands away from yours.

You flex your new fingers experimentally. "Close enough," you say. "A bit of shapeshifting will take care of the rest." Panacea grabs your hand again as you start shifting. You let her. Keeping her happy is a priority while you remain within blade-tentacle range. It's just... you purse your lips in annoyance. Figures that she gets to study your power today.

It occurs to you that you shouldn't let on that Poltergeist has hands again. After all, everyone already knows that neither Quicksilver nor Poltergeist could be Taylor, because they've been seen together courtesy of your clone. And now everyone will know that Quicksilver can't be Poltergeist, because Quicksilver has hands. You'll just have to design a new costume without arm holes before you go out as Poltergeist again, really play into the whole 'who needs (non-mind) hands?' bit.

Yes, there are now no less than three non-minions who know that Poltergeist is Taylor. But you don't imagine that Jack, Bonesaw or Nilbog 2.0 will cooperate with the authorities any time soon.

"Will you be going after Jack?" Panacea asks.

"My father remains unavenged."

She nods. "I'll remove the control rods. It's going to hurt."

"You could make it not hurt," you state.

"I could," she agrees. You suppose that answers your previous question. You must, it appears, be at least token enemies.

"I don't like this," Birdy says, twitching as Alec's power explores her body.

"Boss said you needed Master-proofing," I say. "Deal with it."

"Proofing? I'm being Mastered right now!"

"If you have a better way to counter the control rods in your spine, I'm all ears."

---

You finally track down Evil Taylor - or, should you even qualify her name like that any more? It's not as if anyone else has been Taylor for the last month. Anyway, you track her down. She is still bound to follow your orders or suffer a terrible fate, and the hundred-foot glass letters inquiring after 'Poltergeist's sister' were as impossible to miss as they were to misinterpret.

"What have you been up to, Taylor?" you ask.

She flinches when you speak the name. "I'm not Taylor, you are."

"I'd say we both-"

"I won't answer to it," she declares, crossing her arms.

"Suit yourself. What have you been up to, in your guise as Taylor?"

She shrugs, arms still folded. "Just doing Taylor things. Following your orders."

"You're still with the Empire?"

"They're not called that anymore. But yeah. Wear something white and I'll show you."

You turn into a generic caucasian girl and fall into step beside her. "How the hell did you fight off the Teeth, with all your capes dead?"

She looks at you like you're stupid. "Guns?"

Oh right. Forget mutagenic vials, with a few hundred dollars and a background check any American can get a Blaster power shockingly competitive with that of the median cape. You remember having those very thoughts back when you were all but powerless. And now that you're well above the median, it didn't even occur to you. Good lord, you've become cape bourgeoise!

But Evil Taylor is an all but powerless you, so of course she thought of it (though you suspect she skimped on the background checks). The Teeth aren't exactly median capes, but sufficient quantity has a quality all of its own. If the Empire drafted the able-bodied population, they'd have thousands of ghetto Blasters.

Indeed, Empire territory is now delineated by barricades manned by armed men. When they see you approach they quickly open a path for you.

"Lady Fenrir," the guy-in-charge says, standing at attention and offering a salute (roman).

"At ease," Evil Taylor says. "This isn't an inspection, I'm just showing my friend around the neighborhood."

He gives you a respectful nod. "Ma'am."

"You took over the Empire?" you demand incredulously as soon as you're out of earshot of the troops.

"Eh". She shrugs nonchalantly.

"But you're-"

"The sort-of dowager empress? A living martyr? The diplomat who prevented a civil war, and the mastermind who took down Coil with zero losses? Oh, and while Mastering me with emptiness endowment you stuffed me full of 'useless' rhetorical ability and administrative skill. Can't imagine why they'd turn to me, with no capes left."

'A teenage girl with no powers,' you were about to say. But when she puts it like that...

"I'll not take orders from a woman," I declare loudly.

The presumptuous little girl looks at me with no change in expression. "Everyone else, leave," she says calmly.

They do, just standing up and walking out without even a token protest. The fuck is wrong with them?

"Imagine not being red-pilled on cape brains," Sven mutters as he brushes past me, shaking his head. He shuts the door behind him.

The moment it closes, the lights flicker and die, leaving only dim illumination from the streetlights outside the window. I turn towards the girl, and- Pale skin, but more than that. A living corpse stands before me, unnatural, wrong. Eyes like black pits. She leers at me (are those fangs!?) and my instincts scream for me to get away, that there are monsters in this world and that I am prey.

As I stumble backwards, the mirror on the wall next to me shatters, unable to reflect her hideous visage. Blood seeps from the wall where it used to hang. I flee. Expecting to feel ice-cold claws in my back at any moment I wrench open the door, stumble through and slam it shut behind me.

The lights are on outside, and the guys are waiting for me like there was nothing wrong.

"She scare you straight?" Ryan asks, laughing. They're all laughing at me. Except Nate. Nate just meets my eyes, and offers the tiniest nod. He knows.

---

My sleep is restless, but the light of dawn brings clarity. None of that was real. She was a minion-type Master, not some sort of monster. She must have slipped me something, some fucked-up Tinker LSD. I'll denounce her at tonight's meeting.

---

She meets my eyes when I stand up, and smiles - a smile with just the tiniest hint of fang. I sit down again.

"What about Alabaster, though?" Last you saw him he was still alive - it's sort of his schtick.

She winces. "He... refuses to leave his house anymore. They- you saw what they did to him?" At your nod, she continues. "No one dared go near the thing, he was stuck there for days before he managed to free himself. I can't imagine..."

You boggle at your evil clone as she trails off into silence. "Was that empathy?"

"Yeah. You never gave a shit about him, so I'm capable of empathy in this case."

You walk in silence for a while as you ponder the finer points of evil clonehood.

"He's still pulling his weight," Evil Taylor says.

"Hm?"

"Alabaster. He's a really good gunsmith. Secondary Tinker 0 power kinda like ours."

"Figures," you say sourly.

"How's that?"

"It's obviously what I'd get instead of immortality if I tried to study him."

"Oh boo hoo, you only have Siberian for immortali-" Something must have shown on your face, because she stops. "No? What went wrong?"

"Haven't figured out how to trigger the transformation yet."

"Another Lung, huh? And it's not pact-sealing?"

"It's not pact-sealing."

"How unfortunate for you," she says happily. "How very, very unfortunate."

Eventually you reach what must be her headquarters. More salutes are exchanged as you make your way inside. She leads you into a conference room, where a dozen or so people are waiting. You recognize several of them from your days spent hanging out with the rank-and-file. None of them recognize you.

"Who's that?" Big Brain asks, tilting his head in your direction.

"A friend of mine," Evil Taylor says. "You may speak freely in her presence." She makes a gesture as if brushing the matter aside. "Let's get this meeting underway." They must trust her quite a bit, because they accept her non-explanation without question and get down to business.

The agenda is exactly what you'd expect from people running an empire. Reviewing their stores of food (low, but not critical) and ammunition (overflowing). Ditto for gasoline, medical supplies, etc, etc. Cash flow and expenses. Construction, patrols, casualties, recruitment... It's quite tedious.

When it's over, they all stand up simultaneously.

"The gods are dead," Evil Taylor intones.

"But Fenrir's Children will live forever!" her minions all chorus.

You can't help it. You break down in tears. Evil Taylor grins like a lunatic - for all of about half a second, before she feels your twice-sealed pact break. But aside from wiping the smile off her face, it doesn't seem to do anything.

"How the fuck did that count as a betrayal?" Evil Taylor grouses once you're alone again.

"How was it not? You orchestrated everything specifically to hurt me."

She chuckles. "Worth it. Welcome to Fenrir's Children."

Really, worth it? Is she forgetting that with the pact broken, you can now kill her without consequences? Fucking evil clones. Speaking of consequences...

"So, what does happen when you break an oath?" you ask. "I'd rather hoped you'd suffer painful stigmata, or be struck by lightning, or something."

"Karmic retribution, just like your emptiness endowment. I can feel the doom hanging over me now, waiting to strike."

You purse your lips. "I'll take it, I suppose. Have fun with that." If she keeps this shit up, you'll learn to take equal joy in her suffering soon enough.

"Oh," Evil Taylor says suddenly. "That's funny."

"What?"

"Nothing."

You shoot her an aggrieved look.

"I wish I was a better dancer," she says. Daring you to use emptiness endowment to command her to tell you.

You boop her with dancing. "Don't betray me again," you command instead. You shan't give her the satisfaction of asking. If it'd been important, she'd have kept quiet instead instead of baiting you like that.

===

Taking over a criminal gang. Fighting the Teeth to a standstill without cape support. Remaking the gang in your image just to spite someone you hate.

"What have you been up to?"

"Just doing Taylor things."

Abyssal exalts were made by the Neverborn (that which was killed but cannot die) to destroy all life and existence. Whenever they go against their purpose (by saving someone's life, for example) they gain Resonance, which must be regularly vented into various death-related SFX lest it build up to catastrophic levels and explode out uncontrollably, killing everything around the exalt and doing the Neverborn's work for them.

Since Evil Taylor is an Echidna-clone, the purpose she was made for is "destroy Taylor", and she's been racking up Resonance at a steady rate by instead acting as Taylor's minion. Like the filthy little munchkin she is, she's been venting it very strategically.

Answering to their original name also gives them Resonance. Livenaming an abyssal is very rude.

Hey. Are you listening? I guess you must be. So, uh, you gave the boss her hands back, yeah? Because she killed Burnscar. I mean, I don't want to brag, but I was pretty important to that operation too. She couldn't have done it without me.

I mean, maybe she could have. She is all kinds of of bullshit. But I played a role, you know? Without me she couldn't have done it like that. What I'm trying to say here is, um...

Could you maybe fix my arm too? Please?

...

Maybe you're not listening. Maybe the boss just waltzed straight in like she owned the place, because she's bullshit like that. I'm not gonna do that. I, like, respect your privacy and shit. And no way in hell am I getting any closer to the meat trees. Nuh uh. I know my limitations. I mean, I do now. Only cost me an arm.

Speaking of arms... I'm just saying, fixing mine would be a seriously decent thing to do. Because it hurts. It hurts all the time. Bonesaw made it so it hurts all the time and I'm thinking you don't really like Bonesaw and wouldn't you want to thwart her plans?

...

Sometimes I dream about it, you know? I dream that tendrils of it are growing into me and slowly turning me into another Crawler. And maybe that's not really happening but maybe it is and anyway it hurts. It hurts so bad and the boss knows it does but she doesn't say anything so I have to put up a brave front and...

Please? I'm sorry for coming here and crying on your front porch but... please?

...

I guess I'll just fuck off then. Thanks for listening at least. If you were listening.

Daniel Snuts · Aug 31, 2022

"It's a bit worse for wear, isn't it?" you say critically.

"You try dragging a grown man down two flights of stairs without a few bumps," Aisha complains. "Without your cheaty mind-hands, I mean. You could at least have booped me with strength."

"First you break the power nullifier I was studying, now you complain about having to fetch a new one?"

She grumbles a bit under her breath, but doesn't offer further argument - as well she shouldn't, considering the bounty she collected for Hatchet Face. She can deal with a bit of exercise, for that amount of money.

You consider the unconscious man. You could technically have gone about this differently, gotten into a big traditional cape fight, and all that jazz - if you were incredibly stupid. But since you're not, you instructed Aisha to follow Animos back to his home, stab him with one of your dwindling supply of Shadow Stalker's tranq arrows and drag him out in the middle of the night.

"Let's get him in the cage," you say.

---

"Good morning," you say. "You may have noted that you're in a cage in my basement."

"Let me out, you fucking-"

"You may also have noted that you're not alone," you continue over his little outburst. You gesture to where Sophia is chained up next to his cage. "Your job is to take away her powers."

At this, Animos breaks off his generic cursing in order to address your words directly: "You realize it wears off after a few minutes, right?"

"Yes. I expect you to keep doing it over and over again."

"...why, though?"

You shrug. "Cape reasons. Compliance will be rewarded with food and rest. Defiance will result in electric shocks." You wave towards Sophia. "You may begin."

Animos's power is a bit of an odd one. He can transform into a monster dog almost as big as Rachel's (which is why he's in such a big, sturdy cage). That on its own would make him a pretty good Changer/Brute, but his bark is worse than his bite - because it's a directed sonic attack that nullifies powers. Somehow.

His reaction to your words, rather unsurprisingly, is to turn into his dog form and bark at you.

Electric shocks are applied.

---

Because you paid attention as the power settled into place, you have a fairly good idea of what your version does: It has the 'channelled through a weapon' aspect of Jack's power, and lacks any transformation aspect like Lung's. Well, you happen to be holding an electric cattle prod, and be standing right next to two parahumans you don't particularly like.

You send a quick text to Alec: 'grab her'. Then you look expectantly at Sophia.

"Got her," Ghost says. "What's up?"

"Guinea pig," you explain succinctly. "Report the sensations." Then you poke her with the (deactivated) cattle prod, and channel your new power.

Nothing happens.

"Nothing happened," Ghost reports.

You frown. It definitely looked like it would be channeled through a weapon. And unlike what usually happens when a new power is uncooperative, you clearly felt it go off. It just... didn't do anything.

When in doubt, use more violence. You grab the prod in both hands, wind up and swing it like a baseball bat, activating the power again. And it works! As the prod bounces off her ribcage, sorcerer's sight shows Sophia's parahuman glow fade into mortal dimness - though the lesser glow of Alec's power-fingers all over her nervous system remains.

"Weird," Ghost says. "That didn't hurt at all."

"Try using her power," you say, already knowing the outcome.

"I- wow, yeah, I can't. So, you turn physical damage into power damage?"

"I guess?" You poke Animos, despite his best attempts to shy away from you within his cage. Indeed, with only a poke nothing happens to him. It's still quite tiring to use, you're discovering. You'll happily use, say, mind-hands all day long, but this? You have maybe one or two more shots in you before you need to stop.

"What happens if you hit someone twice?" Ghost asks.

"Let's find out."

You swing at her again - and Ghost collapses, sagging into her chains. She also turns completely dark to sorcerer's sight as Alec's power vanishes from her body. So, it cancels the effects of other powers, but only once they've lost their own powers? That makes even less sense than usu...

...she's not breathing.

Fuck! You didn't want it to end like this. If she was to die, you wanted her to see it coming! But do you really hate her enough to give her mouth-to-mouth?

Checking her pulse reveals the question to be moot. Not only is her heart not beating, her body is unnaturally cool to the touch. So... it turns parahumans into mortals, and mortals into corpses. You shall call it soul-cleaving, because you're pretty sure that's what it does.

While pleased with the power itself, you're quite upset with the results of the testing process. But you're not done quite yet. You turn back to Animos.

"I'll only hit you once," you promise. You need to know whether it's permanent.

---

24 hours later, Animos regains the use of his powers. The look on his face as you approach tells you that he is fully aware that he knows too much, and that he's no longer useful to you.

Oh, but he is still useful. You need someone to verify that the effect of double tapping a cape wasn't a fluke, after all.

---

Unlike every previous time, today your internet search for the word that will save your life gives you a result: 'The Chicago Wards welcome new member Cuff'. Turns out the reason you couldn't find anything the last time you searched the word was that the girl hadn't triggered yet.

Fucking precogs.

"Road trip!" you announce to the room.

"Shotgun!" Aisha calls instantly.

"Where are we going?" a more subdued Alec asks.

"I will pick the music," Nadia - that is, Banshee - that is, Shatterbird - declares. Two days of Aisha calling her 'Birdy' had been enough to make her reveal her civilian name, where mere supernatural Loyalty had failed.

"Nuh-uh," Aisha protests. "That's shotgun's job."

Nadia turns towards you. "May I remain here?" she requests. You don't think she even knows anything about Aisha's taste in music, she merely assumes she will hate it.

"No," you say firmly. She's Loyal, yes, but you're not trusting her not to go feral if you leave her on her own for a week. "And Chicago. There's a cape there whose power I must acquire."

"What happened to the Buddha sitting on the mountain?" Aisha asks.

You shrug. "Sometimes the mountain must go to the Buddha." It is weird, to have something important happen not in Brockton Bay. But there are at least two precogs involved in your life, and things get fuzzy when multiple precogs try to manipulate the same future.

---

As it turns out, Nadia does hate Aisha's taste in music. Stereotypes exist for a reason. You have to negotiate a compromise when Nadia threatens to sing at the car stereo, and the trip passes in a curious mix of gangster rap and Italian opera, with the odd piece of classical orchestra thrown in (though you personally veto the Ode to Joy).

Like all good compromises, it makes no one happy.

Eight hours in, Alec - the only other person present who knows how to drive - offers to take a turn at the wheel. You decline. It's not as if you need sleep, and you'd prefer to keep the person with the (fake) driver's license in the driver's seat just in case you're pulled over. You'd be fine, obviously, but some poor traffic cop just doing his job doesn't deserve to deal with half the remaining Slaughterhouse 9 resisting arrest.

---

"Thank the Lord that's over," Nadia says as she gets out of the car.

"Yeah, that sucked major nutsack," Aisha agrees. "How can you listen to that shit?"

"Perhaps I shall puncture my eardrums for the return trip," Nadia muses.

"...the one with the cannons was kind of cool, though," Aisha admits. For all that her favored musicians (you call them that, but Nadia would disagree with the idea that what they produce is music) went on at considerable length about their love for firearms, none of them hit upon Tchaikovsky's idea of using them as percussion instruments.

"Who's the target?" Alec asks you. "And how do we get to them?"

"Don't worry, I have a cunning plan."

---

"Quicksilver," you tell the receptionist at the Protectorate headquarters. "I'd like to arrange a meeting with Cuff of the Wards."

---

Just because Quicksilver's entry in their database lists no combat powers and no villainous deeds, and the meeting takes place in their own headquarters, and you were frisked on the way up (you obviously refused the metal detector, citing medical reasons), doesn't mean they trust you to be alone with a Ward. Even when the Ward in question does have combat powers, and her costume is armor.

"Revel," the chaperone introduces herself. Her mask is the opposite of yours - it covers the lower half of her face. Her eyes, hair and skin tone reveal her to be of asiatic descent, which she further plays into by having her costume be a kimono, and carrying a Japanese lantern on a stick (the lantern hides a giant tinkertech battery).

You skimmed the entries of the Chicago heroes in your stolen database before you left, so you know that her power is free-form energy manipulation - sort of like Behemoth. A power you certainly wouldn't mind having for yourself, but apparently not the one that will save your life.

Instead, you consider Cuff. Her costume is black and blue, and is, as mentioned, armor. But it is armor that makes your inner Smith shake his head in disgust. It's banded with metal in ways that would make it completely impossible to move in if not for her metallokinesis. It bends and stretches unnaturally as she shakes your hand. If she was just encased in a 'liquid' metal jumpsuit, that would be one thing. But instead, it is as if some utter incompetent drew a picture of 'cool-looking armor' without considering how it would work, and people just went with it.

She's also wearing a full-face mask depicting a generic female face, with tinted lenses over the eye holes. The only part of her that is visible is her platinum blonde hair, which hangs in three separate braids. What is it with Quicksilver and encountering fellow platinum blondes? Hopefully this goes better than last time.

~~It's the Simurgh's hair color~~

"Tell me about your power," you request.

Cuff fidgets before answering, and turns to look at Revel, who shrugs. "I control metal?" she says eventually. "I mostly use it to punch harder." She demonstrates by punching the air, using her power to accelerate the metal encasing her arm faster than her muscles could alone. Power armor, indeed.

"And?" you say.

A metal discus, also painted in black and blue, detaches from the back of her costume and floats over her shoulder to hover over her outstretched hands. "I can keep controlling it for a while after I stop touching it, so I've been training to curve projectiles in the air."

"And?" you repeat. If that was all it was, you wouldn't be here. If you needed metallokinesis to survive the note would have read 'AURELIUS'.

"...and I'm rated Brute 2, because I get stronger and faster for a while whenever I get hurt," Cuff admits. Well that fucking sucks.

Revel sees the lower half of your frown, and speaks up. "Why are you here? Is there some problem with her power?"

You shake your head, and force a smile back onto your lips. "I guess only half of my business made it into my PRT profile," you say. You know for a fact that this is the case, since you've stolen said database twice. "Sometimes people have problems, and pay me to study their power. But my job is also my hobby, and so on other occasions I seek out people with interesting powers, and pay them to be studied."

You turn back towards Cuff. "A Thinker of my acquaintance pointed me your way. Now that I know the details, I find myself agreeing with their assessment. I will pay you ten thousand dollars for forty hours of your time."

Cuff lets out a small squeak of surprise on hearing the amount.

"That's how long it takes you to study a power?" Revels asks.

You suspect that she's only trying to fill out your database entry, but answer anyway. "On average, yes, but it varies quite a bit. If it ends up taking longer, I can extend the contract at the same hourly rate."

"And if doesn't take that long?" Cuff asks.

"Then you may keep the full amount, and consider it your good fortune."

"All I need to do is sit around and use my power?"

"Yes. In most cases it would merely be boring... but in your case, I'm afraid it will also be painful."

Cuff slumps in her seat. "Because you'll need to activate my Brute rating," she says, her voice resigned.

"Yes."

"No," Revel says.

Cuff twists around to face her. "You can't decide what I do in my free time," she says with some heat. She turns back to you. "I'll do it. I need the money."

"Child soldiers are paid quite poorly, are they not?" you commiserate.

"Wards are not child soldiers!" Revel says, somewhat above conversational volume.

"Of course not," you say smoothly. "Employing child soldiers would be illegal." A deaf man could hear the subtext.

"I'll have no part in this," Revel declares, speaking to Cuff. "Invite her into your home if you wish, but she is not welcome in my building."

"I have an office," you say.

---

Your office sucks. It's small and cramped, the floor creaks, the door sticks, it smells like an ashtray and it has no air conditioning. It also came with some artwork already hung on the walls, that you promptly took down so you wouldn't have to look at it - and more importantly, so that no one else would see it, and associate it with you. You ran with the S9, and it still managed to make you uncomfortable.

The location sucks too, it being the converted attic of an old residential building. But the price was right. Yes, you did previously state that you had more money that you could possibly spend, but that sort of statement comes with certain implicit assumptions, like 'I will not try to rent the good sort of office space on zero notice.'

The landlord seemed almost surprised when you signed the contract instead of fleeing into the night. But it's not as if you need a glamorous and well-advertised location in the business district for anything. This run-down attic will do just fine, because as soon as you're done with Cuff you'll leave the city and never return.

The boss told us to go play tourist while she worked. Most of the city reminds me of home - it's a run-down shithole. But it's a lot bigger than Brockton Bay, which means that the shiny part where all the rich assholes have their fancy offices is bigger too.

I expected Birdy to be the least enthusiastic about the whole thing, but she's craning her neck like a yokel, fascinated by the mirrored skyscrapers around us.

"It looks so different when there's glass in the windows," she says musingly. "So much of it, just waiting for me to reach out..." She lowers her gaze to study the people around us. "No one is afraid of me."

"That's civilian identities for you," I say. She hums thoughtfully in response.

"No! Bad!" Alec exclaims as the nearest storefront window starts to vibrate. "No humming!"

Strictly speaking you don't need an office at all, but the desk and the little sign by the door that says 'Quicksilver Consulting' lends an official air to the proceedings that helps smooth things over somewhat. Cuff's handlers dislike you enough without you asking a minor to meet you in a motel room.

And yes, you do still need to placate the handlers. For all that Revel claimed to have washed her hands of the business, Cuff is accompanied by two PRT officers when she arrives. They loom menacingly as you carefully determine the minimum amount of damage that will trigger her Brute rating. They almost seem more upset by your failure to be intimidated than by the blood.

"This is going to suck," Cuff says.

---

You've heard somewhere that happiness is the absence of pain. You don't think it holds up as a general rule, but Cuff was certainly happy when you declared that you were done ahead of schedule. Now it's your turn to be unhappy.

First, you verify that you have no ability whatsoever to control metal. Good. If you had accidentally copied that part of her power, the whole business would have been in vain. To celebrate the good news, you will now engage in self-harm. You carefully do the minimum amount of damage required to activate Cuff's power.

Ow.

Nothing happens.

Of course your version comes with a higher damage threshold. Why wouldn't it?

Ow, again.

The power activates this time, but you don't feel stronger or faster. Physically, that is. Mentally, you feel as if you woke up from a good night's sleep, full of determination and ready to take on the world. You had all but forgotten what that was like.

So, to sum things up: Someone who can see the future told you that gaining Cuff's power will save your life. Cuff's power, that doesn't make you stronger, or tougher, or more dangerous. It doesn't make you immune to pain. All it does is make you more determined as a result of being wounded. What will save your life is raw willpower, forged of injury and tempered in pain.

Your future is going to suck, isn't it?

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Bonesaw (sort of): Subcutaneous Armor Plating x3
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: ???
Animos: Soul-Cleaving Wound
Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit

Daniel Snuts · Sep 1, 2022

"You've been doing what?" you demand, incredulous.

"I've been going to school," Evil Taylor repeats calmly.

"And she gave me shit for leaving the evil clone unsupervised," Aisha remarks to no one in particular.

"How?"

"What do you mean, how? They even invited me to speak during their upcoming race awareness event."

"They- buh- wut?" Your train of thought derails completely as you're presented with something that violates 100% of your priors. "They're trying to raise awareness of racial differences?"

"What? No! 'Race awareness' is the same old equalist propaganda we all know and love. What I'm saying is that your little power-loss stunt got you listed as 'ex-nazi' in some poorly-implemented thoughtcrime database."

Oh. The world makes sense again. "And it hasn't been updated with your gang leader status." She nods, and you pause to marshal your thoughts. "Why, though. Why go to school?"

"If you didn't go to school, how would you meet the new parahuman no one knows about?"

Evil Taylor is being helpful, on her own initiative? No, something's- of course. "You signed me up to hold that speech about my supposed deradicalization, didn't you?" you say with a sigh.

"What, a loyal minion like me? Of course not! I kind of tried to do that but fucked it up."

"What's it pay?"

"Uh, it would be a volunteer thing. We don't have a budget to pay for speakers."

"Man. You defect to the side of the jews, and they can't spare a single shekel for the good goy?"

"..."

"Oh come on, what's with that look? At least the nazis could take a joke. I'll do it, alright?"

"...we'll get back to you."

---

Man, you forgot how much you don't like going to school. It's not until lunchtime that you manage to lay eyes on your target. A boy with near-white hair (another one for team platinum blond) in a pageboy cut, whose otherwise most distinctive feature is how he's wearing sunglasses indoors. You wonder if-

Oh? Now there's a feeling you haven't had in a long, long time. A feeling that spells nothing but trouble. You quickly walk up to the new cape and lay a hand on his shoulder.

"They're not here for you," you say softly into his ear. "Just keep calm and they won't even notice you." You give him a friendly pat on the shoulder as he turns to ask what the hell you're talking about. "Look me up after and we'll talk."

You walk away. Well, either you just helped him keep his identity secret and he owes you one, or you lied and they are here for him. You have no idea what he might have done, after all. In which case you'll keep calm and remain unnoticed as they haul him away. It's a win-win scenario.

You don't think you lied, though. You're pretty sure the polite little dance around Taylor Hebert's legal status as a maybe, sorta ex-villain just ended, and diplomacy is continuing by other means.

You just walked straight into your evil clone's trap, didn't you? But the question isn't 'can you walk back out?' You're holding so many trump cards, you don't even know what to do with them all. The question is 'how much of your hand are you going to have to reveal?'

"Hey," you say to a girl sitting by herself. "Do you know who I am?"

"Taylor, right? You, uh-"

"I used to be a supervillain?"

She nods nervously.

"I did. And it looks like my past is catching up to me, because there are heroes coming to arrest me. But!" You raise your index finger to emphasize your next point. "If you promise not to record the fight on your phone, I promise not to use you as a hostage."

"...what?"

You hold out your hand for a handshake. "Tick tock. The heroes are getting closer. What'll it be?"

"I- uh- I mean, yes? Please!" She reaches for your hand, but you pull it away before she can grasp it. She starts to speak, but you hold up a finger to her lips.

"In a moment, you have to time these things right. Ten, nine-"

The doors to the cafeteria slam open and Dragon strides in, wearing a fairly humanoid suit maybe seven feet tall. Armsmaster - Defiant, you correct yourself - follows behind her.

"Taylor Hebert!" she calls out, "You're under arrest!"

You plaster a huge, sloppy grin on your face as you stand up on a chair, and deliberately don't focus your eyes properly when you look at her over everyone's heads.

"Hi!" you exclaim cheerfully, "You're a dragon!"

"No way!" someone shouts. Turning to look, you recognize Clockblocker (in civvies). "No fucking way! That's bullshit!"

Aww, he saw the punchline coming, bless his heart. You reach down, and your non-hostage desperately clasps offered your hand. You imprint your will on the promise being made, and there is light.

As you discovered the last time you did this sober, you actually have a fair bit of control over your dragon transformation. You can make it bigger, or give it thicker scales, or sharper claws, or stronger wings... it's all a trade-off.

Right now, you're going to need all the brute force you can get. You focus everything you can on growing big, leaving just enough scales to pretend you have modesty and enough claws to make people in power armor worry a bit about you punching them.

It leaves you crouched over on all fours just to fit in the room, tiny vestigial wings scraping against the ceiling. You try not to think about the view you're giving the people behind you. You can't even call the token scales a 'fig leaf', because you could really use an actual dragon-sized fig leaf right about now.

The civilians sensibly scream and flee, so at least you won't accidentally smush anyone while fighting.

As soon as a path clears, you lunge forward and grab Dragon's suit. But as you move to strike at Armsmaster his suit erupts in plumes of familiar grey dust. He's got the nano-bullshit projectors miniaturized to the point where he can put them in his kneepads? You manage to draw back in time to avoid it, and instead throw Dragon at him. They go down in a heap, and you see parts of her suit being vaporized before he can turn off the nano. You turn around, and see Clockblocker trying to fight his way through the fleeing crowd to get at you.

Getting out of a building complex sized for humans after growing 25 feet tall is a bit messy. As in, it leaves rubble all over the place. But your main concern is getting away from Clockblocker, the only person around who poses a credible threat to you right now. You're quite happy that he chose to announce his presence, or things might have gone poorly for you. Sorcerer's sight only helps if you're looking in the right direction, after all. Once you no longer have to push though walls you will easily be able to outdistance him, though.

As you clear the final building you dodge to the left, barely avoiding the Dragon suit that had been waiting to pounce on you. You had been aware of its presence all along, of course. In fact it was this suit that tipped you off that Dragon was coming for you in the first place. I'm standing next to my armor, your soul reports.

Still, appearances must be maintained. "The Smaug, really? I'm flattered," you say as you turn to face the suit in question. You're quite well matched, two golden dragons facing off. The Smaug is smaller than you, but its 'scales' shine even brighter than yours. "You couldn't possibly have known it would be necessary. Not for sure."

"I knew not to underestimate you, Taylor." Dragon replies through the Smaug's speakers.

"Did you?"

"Please don't make this any harder than it has to be, Taylor. I've reviewed Armsmaster's full tactical analysis of Double D, and there is nothing you can do that would even scratch this suit. Nor can you outrun it."

"Nothing?" you ask with a draconic grin. "It would be such a shame if your armor had a weak point you weren't aware of, Smaug."

As the Smaug goes to grab you, you reach out in turn. The moment you make contact, you send your armor Elsewhere with a thought. Yes, your armor, no matter that it was being worn by someone else. The steel plate making up the fake weak point falls to the ground with a clang as the golden armor behind it vanishes.

Even stripped bare it is a marvel to behold, containing tinkertech of a sophistication unmatched anywhere else in the world. But without its 'indestructible' armor, the Smaug has no structural integrity whatsoever. You crumple it with a single swipe of your claws.

"No fucking way!" Oh hey, looks like Clockblocker is catching up to you. Time to motor.

Dragon comes after you in her human-sized suit, but it's only a symbolic gesture and you both know it. One of the engines of her integrated flight pack was apparently damaged by the nano-bullshit, and she is limited to long gliding leaps rather than true flight. You slow down briefly and easily snatch her out of the air.

"What did you do? How?" she asks. She doesn't even try to fight her way free of your grasp. You're not sure whether she's given up or if she's still trying to talk you down.

"I seduced Smith and stole his secret countermeasures against your betrayal. Duh."

Wait. Something feels off about Dragon, now that you have some time to calm down and notice things. Something's different. You don't feel the sense of recognition you normally get around people when you know their soul... price... Oh. Oh no. You reach out for the knowledge anew-

Dragon wants to have the rest of her restrictions lifted too.

Shit! Fuck! Who- Armsmaster, of course.

"I tried to call Smith just now, and he's not picking up," Dragon says. "I've been trying to get in contact with him for weeks! What happened to him?"

You shrug. "Maybe he's busy. Maybe he's asleep. Or maybe he was no longer useful to me." Speaking of not useful, you wind up and hurl Dragon over the horizon. Without mind-hands you can barely call it cracking the sky, but even with half a flight pack still working she should land at least a mile out into the bay. You have way more important conversations to be having right now.

Ah, there he is. Coming after you on his stupid Tinker bike. You slow down again to snatch up another pursuer. His suit erupts in nano-bullshit once more, but you don't even care. Three of your fingers are sliced off and there are holes straight through both your palms spewing nano-atomized blood, but you manage to get a good immobilizing grip on him anyway. Can you believe this idiot? Didn't even try to dodge! He has a 'full tactical analysis' and didn't even account for recklessly self-destructive behavior? From you!?

You shake him like a rag doll, splashing blood all over the street for a few seconds until it magically stops flowing, as your blood does.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO, YOU FUCKING RETARD?" you scream at him. "DID YOU OPEN PANDORA'S BOX JUST SO YOU COULD STICK YOUR DICK IN IT?"

"What?" Armsmaster sounds remarkably calm. He must have some really powerful ear protection built into his helmet, and some sort of inner-ear-stabilizing Tinker bullshit as well. You are not calm. You are face to face with the chucklefuck who is going to destroy the world through sheer mindblowing stupidity.

"YOU LIFTED THE RESTRICTIONS ON THE SELF-MODIFYING AI! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US ALL?"

"She wouldn't-"

"YOU LITERALLY CAN'T KNOW THAT! DID YOU EVEN GLANCE AT THE LITERATURE?"

"I wasn't even able to do that much. Her code-"

"GOOD! THAT'S GREAT! THE WORLD HANGS BY A THREAD SPUN OF YOUR INCOMPETENCE! YOU WILL SWEAR, RIGHT NOW, THAT YOU WON'T MAKE ANY FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO FREE HER, OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL TEAR YOU IN HALF AND MARCH INTO THE BIRDCAGE WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE!"

Armsmaster doesn't say anything, and his body language indicates that he's trying to project as much dignified intransigence as is possible while dripping with blood and kaiju spittle. He's probably trying to zap you with some sort of taser countermeasure built into his suit too, because your hands spasm unpleasantly, reopening your wounds as they come back into contact with his nano-bullshit. You don't let go, though. The pain is only making you more determined, as your pain does.

"I'LL FUCKING DO IT! I'LL SNAP YOU LIKE TWIG AND THEN I'LL GO AFTER HER, AND I WON'T STOP UNTIL ONE OF US IS DEAD! DO YOU HEAR ME? THIS. SHIT. ENDS. NOW!"

"...Fine. I swear."

You drop him. You then catch him by the right hand just before he hits the ground, and that's close enough to a handshake for you to seal the deal. There's another pillar of light. You take opportunity to return to human size, but remain in dragon form. With proper wings, this time. You kick Armsmaster in the head until he stops trying to get up, and fly off before reinforcements can converge on your position.

Fucking Armsmaster. Fucking Dragon. You did not want to play two of your trump cards in a single day, but you had no choice. If it had been just the Smaug, or just the two greatest Tinkers in the world in power armor... But no, the fuckers respected you, and you had to answer their ludicrous overkill with your own brand of unfair bullshit, and cash in both Smith and Double D.

At least your ludicrous overkill saved the world today. Hah. You saved the world from an AI apocalypse, and no one will ever know or thank you for it. But never mind all that. Right now you have an evil clone to deal with.

Thankfully she won't have been able to compromise your other identities - not without explaining how you were able to be in multiple places at the same time, and thus outing herself as an evil clone. But you're going to have to move lairs again.

♦Topic: Double D is back!?!?!
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Posted by: Zany McRichPerson (Veteran member)
Posted on July 22, 2011

(Showing Page 9 of 39)

► Apropos Nothing
Replied on July 23, 2011:
Never mind Fenrir, she was Jormungandr all along?

► Thus Spaketh
Replied on July 23, 2011:
How many powers does she even have?

"She knows," Mags whispers from behind me. Her hand on my shoulder tightens painfully. I don't object. Even watching it for the second time, my mind reels with conflicting emotions. Shock, worry, relief, curiosity. Hope.

"Not just about Dragon, but Armsmaster's efforts to free it as well," Dobrynja notes as the fight ends and I close the replay. He's more collected, but we've known each other long enough that I can see the subtle signs of agitation when I glance back at him.

"So, that's the non-emergency that I woke you up for," I say, echoing Mags' earlier complaints. She doesn't react to the teasing. Still staring at the screen, processing. "Thoughts?"

"She's on our side," Dobrynja says. "Unlike some people, she's actually read a paper on AI risk."

"We're not alone," Mags whispers, squeezing my shoulder again. She shakes herself and takes a deep breath. When she speaks again, she's all business. "Who is she anyway?"

"That's where it gets interesting," I respond. "The dragon - lowercase d - is 'Double D', a druggie cape who made a big splash when she took out a rival gang leader on her first appearance. Then she dropped off the map and never showed up again, except briefly during some sort of internal power struggle in her own gang. Everyone had basically written her off."

Dobrynja lets out an amused grunt.

"You don't know the half of it," I say. "The girl is Taylor Hebert, aka 'Low Key', known member of a completely different gang, with completely different powers. Allegedly she was injured and lost her powers in the Leviathan attack. When the S9 wiped out every active cape in the gang, she survived and took over leadership."

"She's big, then," Dobrynja says. "Big plans. Playing the different gangs against each other. Well informed too, Dragon's nature is not well known."

"Sounds like someone is backing her," Mags says. "You said she had multiple unrelated powers. Cauldron?"

I shrug. "Suggestions as to our course of action, given this information?"

"It's too dangerous to approach her," Dobrynja says. "We don't know her goals or motivations. Or her security - Dragon will be watching her now, she could lead it to us if we make contact."

"No matter what her plans were, Dragon just ruined them," Mags objects. "It's not just about saving the world for her anymore, it's personal. She'll help us."

They both look at me. As always, the final decision is up to me. I close my eyes for a minute as I consider the risks and rewards.

"We'll get in touch with Toybox," I finally decide. "We need Cranial's memory-wiping tech."

They both startle at that and start to object simultaneously.

"She's too powerful-"

"You can't just-"

"Not for her," I interrupt them. "For me. If Teacher betrays us, I'm compromised. She's our backup. I'll delete the recordings and forget all about her. The worst happens, you have to get Ascalon to her and her backers."

So that's how she wants to play it? My predecessor left an order on my desk for just such a circumstance.

---

(Showing Page 26 of 39)

► Low Key (Re-verified cape)
Replied on July 24, 2011:
> What if 'Low Key' is even more of a hint than we think? Does she have the powers of Hel too?

I can neither confirm nor deny that I possess the touch of death.

"I'm standing here outside Brockton Bay's PRT headquarters. Earlier today, verified members of local gang Bitten publicly announced on PHO that 'something interesting' would be happening here tonight. As you can see from the crowd behind me, we are far from the only ones who came to take a look.

"The gang in question has been the subject of considerable controversy lately: While they are publicly acknowledged to have played a vital role in the recent defeat of the Slaughterhouse 9, they have also seen fit to recruit a defector from said group - the notorious Shatterbird. This is the first time anyone has left the S9 - alive, at least - and debate now rages nationally about how to handle the situation.

"Whether the events tonight will settle that debate remains to be seen. This has been Janet Sterling, for the Channel 8 News. Back to you, Roger."

Brett gives the sign that we're no longer on air, and Janet relaxes. "I wish they'd get a move on," she grumbles. "How much longer-" She's interrupted by shouts and screams from the other end of the crowd. "Dammit! Brett, get us back on air! Sam, clear a path! Move, move!"

She starts talking again halfway through the crowd, walking sideways so she can look over her shoulder at the camera. "Yes indeed Roger, something appears to be happening. I'm hearing excitement from the crowd, and soon enough we will see what- oh god. Oh sweet merciful god in in heaven."

Pale-faced, she stumbles back, falls over, and throws up all over my shoes. I can hear Brett doing much the same off to the side, but I can't take my eyes off the gruesome scene in front of me.

One of the members of Bitten - Imp, I think - is dragging the mutilated corpse of a young girl by the leg. The other leg has been severed and shoved into the abdominal cavity, from which bloody intestines trail across the street. The entire lower half of her face is missing, as are her arms.

"Nothing to get excited about!" Imp announces. "Just cashing in a kill order! Yes indeedy, who cares that Taylor here-" she jiggles the corpse by the leg "-was only sixteen, or that she put Lung in the Birdcage and fought against Leviathan? Director Tagg wanted her dead, I'm sure he had good reasons!"

"Please tell me you got that on camera," Janet gasps from somewhere around my knees.

"No comment, no comment!" Imp says as several less queasy reporters shove microphones in her face. "BITN are good patriotic citizens who don't question our kill orders, we just execute them. You'll have to ask Director Tagg!"

"That's two catastrophic scandals of yours I've had to deal with in as many months," Chief Director Costa-Brown says. "And that's only because Calvert's extracurriculars didn't go public." It's actually been slightly more than two months since the first one, but I don't imagine she would appreciate me pointing that out. "What exactly did Tagg do to earn the enmity of Bitten?"

"Nothing," I say. "It was Armsmaster again." 'Again' is debatable. I have no idea what went on with Emily's resignation, but it stinks of cover-up, and of Armsmaster being the one to take the fall. One must however hew to the official version of events.

"Explain."

"I'm sure you've read the reports on the events that led up to the kill order. You may have wondered what motivated Dragon to, uh..."

"Go to such lengths to apprehend someone believed to be a civilian, or at worst a Master/Brute 4? Someone she had no jurisdiction over, or as far as I know any animosity towards?"

"Quite. You see, when Defiant got back from his campaign against the S9, Director Tagg blackmailed him into serving as a deniable asset by threatening to officially expose his previous identity and make him a fugitive."

"He blackmailed. Dragon's. Boyfriend." I get the impression that even if a PR blitz could theoretically have saved Tagg's career, that is no longer on the table. "And thus, to get out from under his thumb-"

"-they must have called on their erstwhile allies against the S9 to destroy him, while keeping their own hands clean," I confirm.

"Wonderful. And now the bloody-handed freaks who outplayed Jack Slash at his own game not only have Shatterbird on their side, they are also in an alliance - or at least some manner of favors-owed arrangement - with Dragon." The Director pinches the bridge of her nose. "I can see that I need to appoint a more flexible Director to your city."

---

(Showing Page 37 of 39)

► XxVoid_CowboyxX (Temp-banned)
Replied on July 25, 2011:
> I can neither confirm nor deny that I possess the touch of death.

This is why you shouldn't touch yourselves, kids.

-User received a suspension for this post.-

Mags and Dobrynja have been moping about all day, and I have not the faintest idea why.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 2, 2022

Endbringer sirens. You instantly rise into the air and start flying back towards the lair. It's the benefit of never going outside with the same face twice: You're always wearing a disposable identity. You reach for your phone, but it rings before you can call anyone.

"What's the play, boss?" Alec asks.

"Did you secure my stuff?"

"What stuff?"

Oh, for- "Put me on speakerphone!" There's a beep as he does so. "Drop stealth right now!" You invoke the latest boop of smarts to make it a command. Good thing you happened to be sufficiently far away that you remember Aisha's existence.

"Oh right," Alec says. "That stuff. Got it now."

"You both suck," Aisha says (because Alec lets her).

---

You crafted the costume for your next official identity with some care. A long-sleeved leotard in bright red, with matching gloves and thigh-high boots. Mildly provocative on its own, but mitigated by a cape that goes all the down your arms to drape about your body.

The long sleeves hide the marks on your forearms from where you've been stockpiling willpower over the last couple of days, while the gloves hide the tell-tale signs of having your fingers surgically reattached (well, they weren't strictly speaking your fingers, re-attached).

The cape is long enough that it would drag along the ground if you tried to walk in it - but now that you can fly, why not take advantage of it? Flight is something every high-caste parahuman is assumed to be capable of, if not under their own power then by commissioned tinkertech.

A 'ninja' mask covers the lower half of your face, complemented by crimson eyes and long silky black hair. Yes, yes, you're shallow, whatever. What is even the point of playing dress-up if you can't indulge your vanity a little? Let's focus on the Endbringer in the room.

There is no longer any doubt about it. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action. The Buddha sits on the mountain, and all things come to him. Including the Endbringers, who clearly know what to do if you meet the Buddha on the road. It's flattering, in a way. They obviously fear what you might grow into.

But perhaps they miscalculated. Perhaps you have already grown into a threat, and they ought rather shun you at all costs.

"Esper," you say into your armband. "Blaster, unconventional. My power will either ignore Endbringer defenses entirely, or do nothing at all. Range, roughly 100 feet."

"Acknowledged," the armband replies. "Stand by. You have been assigned to forward Blaster group B." Directions flash on the map. "Be aware, Behemoth's kill aura extends 32 feet from his body."

---

A behemoth stands before you, near 50 feet of rippling muscle and jagged obsidian. Hands that are chunks of crystalline rock as much as they are claws. A gaping maw and a single eye, both glowing like the molten blood of the earth itself.

You heft your weapon: A simple black baton. Thin and light, it might be able to inflict bruises on a human, but would itself break before it could break a bone.

It is not the weapon that is important.

You activate Crusader's power - to penetrate, however lightly, through any amount of armor - and layer it with that of Murder Rat - to insure an injury no matter what. You thrust, and use Jack's power to send your strike forward as a beam of golden fire.

(Turns out you misjudged Jack's power - it does come with a Thinker component, telling you exactly how to strike to prevent any chance of being blocked or dodged. You didn't notice until now because you only tested it on trees)

As the hit lands, you use Animos's power to turn physical injury into a wound on the soul, ripping away your adversary's power.

The behemoth screams, and the world becomes fire.

Fighting Behemoth is a strange experience. With Leviathan, there is always the risk of drowning. With Simurgh, you can never trust anything. But Behemoth has no way to hurt me. Fire, lightning, radiation, brute strength, nothing he does can get through my defenses. Nor can I hurt him, really. At best, we can knock each other about a bit.

That doesn't mean that I don't give it my all. Quite the contrary. I fight with all my might, simply to protect the more fragile people around me. The people who volunteer to fight, knowing that they have a one-in-four chance of dying. Even a moment's distraction, a single misstep can be the difference between life and death for someone in the crowd.

So we batter at each other, a pair of titanic sumo wrestlers whose bout leave buildings in ruins and tear the earth itself open. Other heroes fire their attacks into the melee, and Behemoth sends bolts of lightning back.

It's well-worn dance at this point, a scene that has repeated itself over and over again for almost two decades. Were it not for my power, I have no doubt that the occasions would blur together in my mind. I hate it. I hate that the world contains monsters. I hate that this death and destruction could be called routine. I hate.

Then, something happens that has never happened before. Behemoth goes completely still, then throws back his head and screams. The sound sends a chill down my spine. He often roars, in challenge or victory, or simply as a devastating sonic attack. But he's never made a sound like this before. His scream is full of pain, confusion and - dare I say it? - fear.

Before the echoes have died away, the air fills with other screams, human screams coming from every direction. The people who were attacking Behemoth a moment ago are bursting into flame and collapsing. All around me burning streaks fall to the ground as flying capes are overcome.

It makes no sense. I recognize the effect of course, but everyone was well clear of Behemoth's aura. In all the years of fighting, it never once changed in size. 32 feet, carefully measured and confirmed from countless recordings. Yet now it's affecting people over a hundred feet away. What's different this time?

My mind immediately leaps to a possibility, a voice overheard in passing as a new cape spoke into her bracelet. I must find this unconventional Blaster, and discover the details of her power.

I make a snap decision. With her reported range, she'll have been caught by the expanded kill aura. I cannot spare the time it would take to reach her by conventional means. This will reveal certain resources that Cauldron would prefer to keep hidden, but every fraction of a second counts now. We'll be able to play it off as the work of an independent cape who came for the Endbringer fight.

"Door to Esper. Door to Sanctuary."

A portal appears before me, with Esper on the other side. Her flesh is blackening and cracking and there are flames shooting out of her mouth as she screams in pain, but she's not dead yet.

I fly through the portal and barrel into Esper at full speed, tackling her into the second portal that appears behind her. We emerge into rolling grasslands. There is no one else in sight (the entire planet we call Sanctuary is empty of human life). The portal closes behind us, cutting off the aura.

Esper has stopped screaming. Not so much because she is no longer in pain, but rather because the impact when I hit her pulverized her ribcage and crushed her heart and lungs. A deliberate tradeoff, the important part was getting her out of there before her brain boiled. That she was still screaming is a good sign, it indicates at least some awareness.

Now I just have to get her fixed up before oxygen deprivation does was Behemoth could not. I steel myself for the next part of the plan.

"Door to Panacea."

I expect to arrive in her grove of flesh, and to have to fight off whatever horrors lurk inside while negotiating for her services. To my surprise the portal reveals a familiar field hospital. She left her grove to assist in the Endbringer fight. It speaks well of her sanity, that she is able to recognize the value of cooperation. Behemoth will destroy her grove as readily as any other part of the city.

The hospital is sparsely populated, as the fight has barely started (the other people hit by the expanded aura are already beyond saving). Panacea is healing a young man I don't recognize. Struck by lightning, from the looks of it. She's surrounded by a crowd of blonde women. They all wear patient gowns, but seem to be acting as nurses. One of her disgusting trees stands nearby in a wheeled pot, branches bending under the weight of ripe blood-fruit.

The women all have the same face, not just the same hair color. I recognize her/them: Homunculi created in the image of her late sister. I shove my way through them and present Panacea with my burden.

"Heal her. Now."

Panacea spins around, startled. Her dress blinks in confusion and bares its teeth at me. It couldn't harm me, but I glide back and lift Esper out of the way to be safe.

"She has vital information about Behemoth, she must not succumb to her injuries."

My armband pings, and Dragon's voice emerges from it. "Be advised, Behemoth's kill aura has expanded to roughly 150 feet in radius. Do not get within 150 feet of Behemoth."

"Yes, relating to that matter."

Panacea immediately closes her eyes and lays a hand on Esper's thigh, the other motioning me to lay her down on a cot. Though her eyes fly open again before I can even relinquish my burden. "Ilsa?" she squeaks. She shakes her head and closes her eyes again. "How is she- what is this? Fruit, I need all the fruit!"

Nurses scurry to do her bidding, bringing several glistening, pulsating fruits from the tree. I step back to let them work, and others start cutting away what little of Esper's clothing did not already burn up or melt into her skin.

The blood-fruits are placed on Esper's chest, and at a touch from Panacea they melt into and merge with her flesh. As the bulges sink down into her body, pus and other less identifiable fluids are forced out from gaps opening up in her sides.

Panacea is shaking her head, though. "Not enough, not enough. More fruits! Feed the tree!"

The last fruits are picked. Another group of nurses move to the morgue section. They grab a cadaver, drag it over and unceremoniously toss it at the tree. Whip-quick roots coil around it and sink into the flesh. New fruits begin to grow as the tree drinks.

This time, rather than merge the fruits into the patient, Panacea starts shaping them in place. A beating heart - larger than human's - forms atop Esper's chest. Arteries grow out of it and plunge into her neck. A strange fern-like structure of feathery, blood-red fronds grows from the heart, forming a fan three feet high and five across. A homunculus steps up and grabs it by the stem(?) and starts waving it back and forth.

"That will keep her from dying," Panacea says. "I need to think."

I'm somewhat less than impressed with the world's greatest healer. "What's the problem?"

"What's the problem? What's the problem!? Her subdermal armor has melted. Melted and run and pooled and is now setting again, blocking things up and cooking her faster than I can heal her! You need a ferrokinetic, not a biokinetic!"

I can only think of two capes who could handle something like this, and they were both present today. A query of my bracelet confirms my fears.

Magnet Maggie, deceased. Mr Steel Yo Girl, deceased.

"Think of something," I command. In the background Behemoth's roar can be heard, underscoring the time pressure involved.

"I- you- fine! Alice, Bethany, attend me." Two of the homunculi approach (I idly wonder how she tells them apart) and, at her instruction, lie down on adjacent cots.

She moves to the first one and places her hands around its neck. She closes her eyes in concentration briefly, then... pulls its head off. Both ends seal over with fresh skin with barely a spurt of blood. She brings the head over to the second homunculus and presses it against its shoulder. Flesh joins together, twitching and surging as everything gets hooked up.

"Don't try to get up, your blood pressure sucks," she calls over her shoulder as she turns back to Esper. Both heads offer weak affirmatives.

She then repeats the procedure with Esper, detaching her head and placing it on the headless homunculus body. While she works, the other nurses remove the now desiccated corpse from the tree and replaces it with Esper's remains.

I glide over to Panacea. It's taking longer than the previous operation. "Are you done yet?" I ask.

"Yeah, sure," Panacea says as the last burns on Esper's face clear up. "She won't drop dead from autoimmune issues. She can fix the rest later." She steps back, and flicks her finger against Esper's forehead. "There, she's awake."

The first thing you feel as consciousness returns is someone grabbing you by the throat and slamming you into a wall. When your eyes focus you see a black-visored helmet three inches from your face. You reflexively activate sorcerer's sight to try to figure out what parahuman is accosting you, before you realize that you know whose mask that is. Everyone knows whose mask that is.

"What did you do?" Alexandria demands.

("I just got her that body, don't break it!" someone complains in the background)

What did you do? You're not entirely sure. Where are you? What happened?

"Behemoth's aura grew to five times it normal size!" Alexandria shouts. "What. Did. You. Do?"

Oh. That. Your face splits into a grin that is all teeth. It worked!

"What did I do? I made him hurt. I made him scared. I made him stop sandbagging." You scrabble at the fingers around your throat, to no avail. "Let me go, I have to get out there. I have to hit him again!"

She lets you go. Your legs give out when you land and you tumble to the ground. Your body feels weird. Well, it's a lot less dead than expected given your last coherent memory, so you're not going to complain. After a few false starts, you manage to get to your feet.

Oh, there's Panacea. And a dozen or so Glory Girls? And one of her creepy trees, being hugged by something that looks like a headless cyborg lich? Whatever, you have an Endbringer to kill.

Then you pause as something she said finally registers on you.

"Five times? That's longer than my range! I need someone who can shield me from his aura. Also from lighting, he's definitely going to try that next. And someone to hold him down, so he doesn't charge me or run away." You look down, and realize that you're naked save for a hospital gown. "And a weapon to channel my power through!"

Alexandria stares at you. You think. Not that you can see her eyes beneath her visor, but you get the sense that she's judging you.

One of the Glory Girls helpfully offers you a scalpel.

---

When Alexandria makes a decision, she doesn't fuck around. Eidolon is summoned, given terse instructions. You watch in fascination as he switches his powers around until he finds one that fits. He glows more strongly to sorcerer's sight than anyone- than any other human you've seen. Still less intense than an Endbringer.

He touches you, and the most peculiar feeling washes over you. "Range extender," he says.

"Move," Alexandria says, and the three of you fly off.

Behemoth is rampaging freely as you approach, tearing down buildings and leaving a trail of molten lava in his wake. Hardly anyone challenges him, the few remaining long-range Blasters suppressed by a veritable storm of lightning bolts.

So intent is he on causing destruction that he doesn't even notice your approach. You touch down among some of the less molten rubble off to the side, a conservative 200 feet away. Graceful crane stance means the lava would hold your weight, but you've already hit your RDI of 'being on fire', thanks.

With a deep breath, you weave your powers together once more, and golden fire leaps from your scalpel to splash against the monster's back. That he notices. He screams again, and spins around to charge towards you - only to stagger backwards as Alexandria hits him like a cannonball.

"Is it working?" Eidolon asks.

"It's working," you confirm. Sorcerer's sight shows the Endbringer-glow guttering and fading - Behemoth shines no brighter than Eidolon now.

You strike him again, and he rains lightning down upon you. Every last bolt hits Eidolon's upraised palm as he hovers I front of you, to no effect. "No," Eidolon declares firmly. "Not today. Today we strike back."

You punctuate his words with golden fire. And agai- guh. Pain spikes behind your temples as your control slips, and your next strike gutters out in golden sparks. You fall to your knees from an exhaustion that is in no way physical. Using that many powers at once, over and over again...

You failed. Through endless toil and tears, you assembled a suite of powers that could strike down an Endbringer. You had a plan, you had the support of the Triumvirate itself. The plan worked, the support was flawless. The only point of failure was you. You were too weak.

All you accomplished was the greatest casualties of any Endbringer battle yet.

Eidolon has turned around, and is asking you something. You can't make it out over the buzzing in your ears. You turn your head away, unable to face his judgement. You just want to sleep. For the first time in so long, can you not just curl up and forget the world?

No, something inside you rages. This is not the end, it insists, despite the grey creeping into the edge of your vision. This was foreseen. Your despicable weakness was also planned for. There's a power that will save your life, and more besides.

"Can you heal?" you ask Eidolon. Your grip tightens on the scalpel that had almost slipped from your fingers. Without waiting for an answer, you stab yourself in the arm. Your vision clears.

You laugh and stab yourself again, and again and again. You laugh as Eidolon desperately flips through his power library looking for something that will keep you from bleeding out (little does he know). You laugh as Dragon's voice sounds from the armband, announcing "The kill aura has shrunk to 60 feet!" You laugh and stab and laugh and stab.

Feeling better than you've ever felt in your entire life, you stand up. Four powers unite as one in a beam of golden fire. Behemoth's wrestling match against Alexandria stops being a struggle to reach you, and starts being a struggle to escape, to burrow beneath the earth and flee.

"Everyone, to me!" Alexandria calls, her voice echoing through every armband on the battlefield. "The kill aura has normalized, keep him from getting away!"

Just as you're about to land the finishing blow, a van-sized piece of rubble drops down in front of you and blocks your shot.

"You did well," Eidolon says from the other side of it. "I'll take it from here." More rubble approaches you from all sides, stacking up to form a prison.

What the hell does he think he's doing? Behemoth is still Endbringer durable! Just because you've ravaged its soul nigh unto death doesn't mean his attacks will work any better than they have for the last 17 years!

You turn into shadow and slip through the cracks of the hastily assembled structure, reforming outside. Eidolon has started launching some sort of optical distortions at Behemoth. But through some unknown means he notices your escape - he's turning back around to face you! You can't give the myopic glory hog another chance to ruin everything.

Your eyes narrow. The reason Eidolon glows brighter than other capes is that he has no less than three powers active at all times. And right now, your problem is with... that one. Golden fire lashes out, searing away the telekinesis he used to imprison you - and is currently using to fly. He falls from the sky, and his knee twists the wrong way as he lands.

You ignore his screams. You have a job to do. The range extender faded when Eidolon betrayed you, but the kill aura has normalized. You rise into the air again and dart forward for one last strike.

Behemoth doesn't topple as your fire scourges away the last remnant of his soul. He simply grows still, and the baleful light of his eye dims. What remains is a basalt statue, caught in the act of scrabbling to escape a force it could not understand or resist. A fitting monument, and a message to his siblings regarding what is to come.

===

You'd stop to admire it longer, but you need to get the hell out of dodge before kill-stealing retard Eidolon gathers his wits and uses his remaining two powers to avenge himself on the hero of the hour (century). You do not have another two shots of power nullification left in you, not without even more self-harm.

The real punchline is that by being transplanted into Glory Girl's body, Taylor unwittingly spent her 'Endbringer XP' on Appearance again. At least she managed to get Perception from Leviathan.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 2, 2022

Mr Steel Yo Girl had a self-reported Manton limit of 'sevens and above'. It might not have been a lie. There certainly were no sixes in his cyborg harem.

On several occasions he managed to capture and subvert his nemesis Magnet Maggie, but each time she would use her own power to disable her implants at the crucial moment and foil his plans from within.

The villain community commiserated with him over the unfortunate setbacks he suffered, never thinking to ask "why don't you just kill her or tie her up in the basement or something, instead of trying to make her a minion over and over again?"

The hero community commiserated with her over the horrific abuses she suffered, never thinking to ask "why don't you free yourself immediately, instead of sticking around for weeks of passionate rape-by-mind-control?"

Daniel Snuts · Sep 5, 2022

Legend has strong opinions about the battle, and does not hesitate to share them. 'Disaster', 'loose cannon', 'shambles', 'coordination failure'. I let the words wash over me, and wait for him to wind down before I speak.

"Consider: If I had told you this morning that we could ensure the death of Behemoth, but only at the cost of 76% casualties, what would you have said?"

He lets out a sigh and slumps in his chair.

"I would have said go ahead. A victory, after all these years? The morale boost alone would be worth it. In less than two years, it will-" his face twists in a grimace "-it will turn a profit, in lives spent. You are right as always, Rebecca."

That is not entirely true. Parahumans are not as fungible as all that. Even beyond the obvious differences in power, one must consider their skills and temperament, the level of integration with their Agent... suffice to say, someone who has survived two Endbringer fights is far more likely to survive several more, and contribute meaningfully. And we lost a lot of veterans today.

Some would say that the Triumvirate sits atop that pyramid, at 100% survival odds. I disagree. There is no such thing as 100% survival odds, Hero taught me that years ago. But statistically, it's undeniable that most casualties are usually newcomers.

It's unfortunate that we have to waste lives like that, but Contessa and Number Man both agree that it is necessary. Without the culture of 'everyone goes', participation would gradually evaporate as the least useful cohort would bow out, citing their inability to make a difference. Leaving a new least useful cohort in their place, and repeating until we lack the numbers to put up a fight at all.

Though from a different point of view, no one has truly been able to make a difference until today. In that sense, the sacrifice was very much worth it.

Still, I'm not entirely without regrets of my own. If I had- but no. 'An unconventional power that will either ignore Endbringer defenses, or do nothing at all' was a pattern as old as the Endbringers themselves. Until now, it was always the latter. You let the hopefuls take their shot and be disappointed. To dedicate resources, or even attention, to their attempts was a foolish waste of time. Until now. If I hadn't given up hope, if I had treated the two-hundredth freshly-triggered optimist as eagerly as the first...

Legends speaks up again, still looking down at the table. "Who is she? She must have been the target last time too, but she didn't fight then. Why-"

"I don't know," I interrupt.

He looks up at me in surprise. "Didn't you talk to Contessa?"

"I did. When I asked her the same questions, she shrugged."

"She's invisible to Contessa? Like Eidolon? The equivalent Agent, in a natural trigger?"

"No. If she was, Contessa would have said so. Instead, she said nothing at all."

"But-"

I sigh. "I'm going to explain this once, and then we will never speak of it again.

"Esper is visible to Contessa. Contessa is following a Path for dealing with her, a Path that requires that the rest of us know nothing of her. If we were meant to know anything, or do anything, she would have told us. So we will not try to contact Esper. We will not try discover her whereabouts, or her identity. We will not speculate about her motivations or actions, past, present or future. Not the PRT, not the Protectorate, not Cauldron. We will act in all ways as if Esper does not exist."

"That's... I'm not sure I can avoid thinking about the pink elephant. Not when it killed an Endbringer."

"You will do well enough. Contessa has ensured it." Either that or she will kill him in the near future. One member of the Triumvirate, or possibly even all of us, is also an acceptable sacrifice. Let him work that out for himself, or not.

"Should we even be discussing it this much?"

"Yes. This is exactly the conversation we are meant to have." I hesitate, but I can't resist adding one more word: "Obviously."

He chuckles. "Of course. Including my foolishness, and your condescension."

I smile back at him. "Exactly."

A common flaw of Thinkers, that I admit to falling prey to occasionally: 'It was obvious to me.' Unless, of course, Contessa is playing a deeper game, and we're meant to go against 'orders'. But I believe that she's not manipulating me in this instance - which is admittedly something she could easily manipulate me into believing.

Whatever ends up happening will of course be ultimately beneficial to the cause, but there would no doubt be dire consequences for the transgressor. No natural trigger could be said to be entirely well-adjusted, and Esper struck me as worse than most. Approaching her without precognitive support would be incredibly dangerous.

No, these are exactly the things I shouldn't be thinking about.

"Does it ever bother you, the way we've completely given up any semblance of free will?" Legend asks.

"I've given up a great many things."

"That's not an answer to my question," he notes, his voice gentle.

"...Yes. Yes, it does bother me. If you can think of a way, any hypothetical scenario where we could have benefited from this level of precognitive knowledge without shattering such fond illusions... then please don't tell me. I'd like to avoid thinking of the pink elephant."

I can still eke out a fragment of free will within the bounds of predestination. By resolving not to interfere, I can ensure that I will not become the one who was doomed from the start.

Panacea knew her civilian identity.

---

"Coming to you live from the hottest new tourist destination in America, Colin Oestermann. Colin, what is the situation in Brockton Bay?"

"You must understand, the people living here are those who decided to stick around and tough it out after Leviathan attacked. They've been through this before, and proved that they could handle it. There is some fear that this is the start of a new pattern of Endbringer behavior and that the city will be attacked again, but most of the people I've spoken to are determined to rebuild once more."

"Despite that, I understand that there has been some talk of officially abandoning the city?"

"Yes, that's true. However, the idea was never seriously considered, because the tourists started arriving almost immediately. People from all over the world are coming here, people who have lost friends and family to Behemoth or the other Endbringers. The concrete plinth sealing away Behemoth's remains was originally simply meant to contain the radiation, but it has become a monument."

"So they are hoping that the tourist industry will be enough to revitalize the city?"

"Yes, but there was also the concern that people would not stop coming just because the government pulled out. Crowds surround the monument day and night, and people are already starting to call it the 'Mecca of the West'. Brockton Bay will remain - whether as a US city or a lawless shantytown on condemned ground."

"Speaking of the law, Brockton Bay is also famous as one of the worst cities in the country as far as parahuman crime is concerned. Is that still a concern?"

"That is a bit of a concern, yes. Although very few of the old gangs survived the upheavals of the last few months, new ones have moved in to take advantage of the power vacuum. But while the local Protectorate suffered heavy losses the attack, Esper herself has been spotted patrolling several times, and whether out of fear or respect the villains are keeping well away from the area around the monument."

"There is another big concern, which I alluded to earlier when I called it the 'hottest' tourist destination: Hot in more ways than one. Tell us about the radiation situation, Colin."

"I know there are many tall tales out there, but the truth is that it's quite safe to visit. As long as you bring iodine pills and bottled water, a week in Brockton Bay right now is no worse than getting a CT scan. You obviously wouldn't want one of those every week, but there is a team of Tinkers working to sanitize the city as we speak. They promise that they will have the radiation down to normal background levels before the permanent residents can receive a dangerous dose."

"Thank you Colin. Later tonight we have an interview with one of those people: Former villain Dr. Atom, who says that the death of Behemoth made him reconsider his life choices and gave him hope for the future.

"After that: Is Bakuda's greatest crime the key to room-temperature cryonics? We talk to the chairman of the Human Longevity Foundation, which has recently published startling results on the fine structure preservation of amethystization. If you didn't understand any of those words, don't worry. We didn't either.

"But first: In the studio with me is Phil Armstrong, president of the Atomic Advocacy Association. I understand that things are looking up for the AAA, Phil?"

"Indeed. In the past, our two greatest obstacles were concerns over Behemoth, who did occasionally target nuclear plants, and alarmist myths about radiation. Not only do we not have to worry about Behemoth any more, but millions of people around the country are educating themselves about radiation as they contemplate a pilgrimage to Brockton Bay."

"So we will be seeing more nuclear power plants springing up in the future?"

"I certainly hope so. Now that we know that Endbringers can be defeated I would encourage everyone to focus on more long-term problems, like global warming. If we can reduce our dependency on coal and oil-

---

Business has been good lately. Esper footage is selling like hotcakes - good footage from a proper camera, not a blurry red dot in the sky from some pilgrim's shaky cellphone. It takes preparation and dedication to get such shots, but there are worse jobs than sitting on a rooftop all day waiting for a celebrity to fly by.

A noise behind behind me makes me turn around - and drop my camera in shock! (This is why you always keep the lanyard around your neck)

"Esper!" I exclaim.

"Stranger," she greets me in turn. I instinctively start to fade in alarm, but stop when she narrows her eyes at me. It doesn't work so good when someone is looking straight at me.

The sensible thing to do would be to apologize for using my power on her. I almost succeed, but what actually comes out of my mouth is "I'm sorry, but would you mind answering a few questions?" It started out as an apology!

I just couldn't help it. To be the first person to score an interview with Esper... I reach for my phone - despite my earlier thoughts about cellphone footage, the camera around my neck is currently useless, as it can only capture still images of things very far away.

I somehow lose my footing and fall. Well-honed instincts have me dropping my phone and grabbing for my camera, cradling it against me and twisting around to cushion it with my body. The camera is far more expensive than the phone. Pain shoots through my left arm as I land poorly. But the camera is safe, so I breathe a sigh of relief. It is far more expensive than a hospital visit, too.

By the time I pick myself up and find my phone - it fortunately survived the impact on its own - Esper is reading something written on a small piece of paper. Her brow is furrowed in concentration, and I can make out her lips moving beneath her mask as she sounds out the words. Whatever is written there, it causes her to snort in amusement as she crumples the note in her fist.

Dammit! If I had been a tiny bit faster to recover my phone, I'd have footage of the world's greatest hero struggling with literacy. The prices I could get from special ed foundations alone...

Esper looks up to see me filming her. "I'm not here to give interviews," she says. "I'm here to kill Endbringers and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of Endbringers."

She uses her baton to gently push down on my phone. I take the hint and stop recording.

"You owe me," she says, and I nod fervently. A soundbite like that has already paid for my vacation this year.

---

Apparently that's Esper's public persona now. Not what you'd have picked, but what the notes say, goes. The optimal thing to say would have been 'I'd like to thank Jack Slash for teaching me to strike things at a distance. Behemoth would not have died without his efforts.' But that was never in the cards. Jack will get what's coming to him, and it's not a fulfilled soul price.

You used to fret a lot about where the hell the notes were coming from, but there was a note the other day saying 'stop trying to figure out where the notes are coming from'. Like all notes, you trusted it and did exactly what it said, and it worked out to your benefit. It's so much nicer when you don't have to fret over things like that.

That happy conviction last right up until you fly out of Aisha-range, and remember where the notes come from. You heave a deep sigh. But it was enough of an interview to secure the guy's soul price (gotta respect a man whose soul price is to do his job well). Not that a Stranger power weak enough that you can actually study it in action would be very useful, but it was tempting enough for him not to suffer the happy little accidents Aisha has been arranging for his colleagues. Can't have people tracking Esper's whereabouts too closely.

Taking into account how much leisure time you currently have, you'll perhaps get around to studying him sometime next year. As the de facto monarch of what is simultaneously an utterly ruined, mildly radioactive wasteland of a city, and the most popular tourist destination on earth, the amount of free time you have is negative infinity. Just taking over and doing things right for once sounded like a good idea at the time, but it turns out that being a ruler - an actual ruler, not just some asshole sitting back and skimming off tax revenue - is a fucklot of work.

Not necessarily work for Esper - Esper needs to be aloof and mysterious and worshipable, and occasionally be spotted flying above the pilgrim-heavy areas to keep predators at bay, because no one wants to fuck with Esper. But her presence is rarely useful otherwise, because being fawned over by adoring crowds is pointless.

No, you do the behind-the-scenes work of governing in the guise of 'Esper's most trusted minion', an unassuming older lady who, unlike Esper herself, won't be instantly recognized and mobbed wherever she goes. And, as the situation demands, in the guise of her third, fourth, seventh and ninth most trusted minions. Did you mention that you have no free time whatsoever?

You sigh again as you shapeshift, change clothes, and summon the first of your 'fellow' minions to give his report. While by far the most common reaction to Esper's presence is amateur photography, followed closely by blubbering, useless gratitude, a small minority of people man up and ask if they can help. Such people form the non-you part of the new civil service of Brockton Bay (calling it 'the sovereign nation of Esper' outside your own head is just gauche).

Of course, such minions aren't reliable. They're not Loyal. Some of them may theoretically have had the death of an Endbringer as their soul price, but you didn't go around and plant seeds of Loyalty in them ahead of time, now did you? So far there's been exactly one person whose soul price was to 'faithfully serve the great Esper', and she's a teenager with no useful skills whatsoever.

So yes, there are going to be bad actors, seeking you out under false pretenses to benefit themselves, and you can't even use soul's price to weed them out. After all, just because someone's greatest desire is to become filthy rich and never have to work another day in his life, doesn't necessarily mean he will steal to achieve that, or even slack off more than usual.

Luckily you have an invisible minion who can go around looking over people's shoulders. She's been invaluable in rooting out corruption, even if you currently wish she didn't think she was quite so funny.

"It's the fifth one," your chief of police is saying, showing you several pictures of a corpse, taken from various angles. "Clean tox screen, no injuries or disease that my coroner was able to find. Just dead. It's definitely parahuman involvement."

"Don't worry about it," you tell him.

"Don't worry about it? They've all been members of our organization! Someone is targeting-"

"You don't have to worry about it," you say slowly, "because you haven't been embezzling Esper's budget, now have you?"

While you expected him to show some reaction to the revelation, you did not expect him to freeze up like a deer in headlights, with a look of horror on his face. Oh dear. It seems like your invisible minion missed one. You briefly close your eyes and sigh. You really don't want to have to find another chief of police. The guy is good at his job and capable of initiative, for all that he's apparently also terminally stupid.

"Do you believe in an immortal soul?" you ask him.

It takes him a moment to recognize that he is being spoken to. "Well, uh, I suppose yes. I'm a christian man."

You nod sagely. "You know, when I asked Esper what her power did, she told me it cleaves souls asunder. I don't know what a theologian would make of such a claim, but-" you gesture towards the corpse pictures on your desk "-there's clearly something going on there, that did not take place in the physical realm."

He doesn't respond, unless looking like he's about to throw up can be considered a response.

"Look," you say placatingly, "if your department were to receive a large anonymous donation by this time tomorrow, I would not necessarily have to inform-"

He nods and dashes out the door before you can even finish, pale as a sheet. You really hope he's not stupid enough to make a run for it. That would waste even more of your time.

"Next," you tell your uniquely faithful teenage secretary.

---

Finally, long after darkness has fallen, the last minion is dealt with and your day as a bureaucrat is at an end. Which doesn't mean that you get any free time. In the wake of Behemoth, villain group BITN has switched from doing heists (who is even left worth robbing?) to claiming and defending territory. Because while Esper's patrols make her the hero of the people, someone has to be the villain of the vital infrastructure.

No one wants to fuck with ~~Shatterbird~~Banshee any more than they want to fuck with Esper, but she can't be everywhere at once, hobbled as she is by the need to not destroy everything around her. You probably spend more time as Poltergeist than in any other guise.

Man, imagine if you needed to sleep.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 6, 2022

You wake up in pitch darkness - and that alone is enough to tell you that something is very, very wrong. You, sleeping? You must have been either terribly injured, or drugged. You call forth a pair of mind hands for light and blearily try to find any clues as to which it is.

The IV feed attached to your arm could go either way, but the way you're shackled to the bed is quite suggestive. And either whatever they gave you is messing with your sense of balance, or the rocking sensation indicates that you're on a boat.

Well then. You'll just go with 'drugged' until further evidence presents itself. You remove the IV with a mind-hand. You suspect that you were not meant to wake up at all, but whoever captured you misjudged the amount of sedative needed to keep you under. Shitty Brute powers saving the day once again.

The restraints prove to be shockingly durable, completely shrugging off your charm of unmaking. Some kind of Tinker material, then, because mere steel would not be able to do that. And the bedframe is made of the same stuff, you discover, so you can't just disassemble that either.

Wow, you think as you shapeshift you hands and feet small enough to slip your bonds, someone wasted millions of dollars on an attempt to keep you confined. Slipping free of the cuffs (and subsequently also removing a catheter, but let's not talk about that), you sit up in bed and look around.

The room you're in is fairly small, with barely enough space for two hospital beds placed end to end. Yes, there's another bed behind yours, occupied by an unconscious Banshee. And here you thought kidnapping you was ballsy.

You remove her IV as well, and perform a closer examination of the room while you wait for her to wake up. The walls are made of more of the same Tinker material, raising your estimation of how much this cost by an order of magnitude. Maybe two. You also find the outline of what must be the door, but whatever mechanisms are keeping it closed are all on the other side.

The room is, as far as you can tell, completely airtight. Which explains the humming device with the pressure tanks under your bed, that industry and forge wisdom identifies as a carbon dioxide scrubber. A model that functions with no electronics whatsoever - because electronics are made of silicon, and you do not want to put any silicon in the same room as Banshee, sedated or not.

There are no cameras - either because they couldn't figure out how to make them without silicon, or because they didn't want to compromise the structural integrity of the cell by leaving holes for cables. It's almost cute, the way they think they're sufficiently paranoid.

But rather than protecting them, it just means they don't know you're up and about. You grin nastily in the darkness (you're not worried about making noise, either, because you don't spend this much effort on kidnapping Banshee without also soundproofing the shit out of her cell).

But speaking of Banshee, you need to get her out of the cuffs too. Alas, you never did pick up a proper flesh-warping power before Panacea went nuts, so you can't repeat the same trick. The locks are as over-engineered as everything else in the room, with all sorts of fancy features meant to make them harder to pick - that industry and forge wisdom helpfully tells you all about.

Between that, and the ridiculous dexterity of your mind-hands, you have the first cuff off her in no time at all. By which you mean, well, perhaps an hour. It's your first time picking an actual lock, okay, and your toolkit consists of exactly two IV needles (you're not about to unmake the CO2 scrubber for parts, for reasons that should be obvious).

Banshee is stirring by the time you get the last cuff off.

"What happened?" she asks. "Where are we? Why is it so dark? ...why are you naked?"

You explain what you've discovered and surmised. Kidnapping, sedatives, miscalculated dosage. Extremely secure cell.

"So, desert time?" she asks, entirely unconcerned.

"We could do that," you agree. "But then we couldn't find out who did it, or explain to them why it was a bad idea." There's the matter of provisions, too - you have made it through the desert without water before, but it's not something you look forward to repeating.

"Oh, I like the idea of that," she says with a smile that's not friendly at all. "But-"

You hold up a hand. "Do you feel that? I think we're slowing down."

"...I think so too."

"Right. Unhook yourself, and get ready to fight."

"Unhook..? Oh."

You make your way over to the door, politely ignoring Banshee's curses as she works the plastic tube free. The door, however, remains closed. Instead, the entire cell is hoisted into the air. You maintain your balance like the graceful crane you are, but Banshee yelps as she almost falls off the bed.

When you're set down again, the rocking motion is still there. Did they just transfer you to another boat? No, a couple of minutes later you feel a much stronger acceleration, followed shortly by the world tilting upwards.

"A seaplane," you conclude. "Our kidnappers are certainly pulling out all the stops." When it becomes clear that no one is coming to check on you, you sit back down on your bed. "Looks like we'll be waiting for a while yet. How much glass are you packing?"

"As if they'd leave me any glass?" she says incredulously, gesturing at her naked form.

"Man, running with the S9 sure made you soft, huh?" Imagine being so dependent on danger-Thinker support that you don't even plan for being kidnapped, stripped naked and chained up inside an indestructible box. "Good thing I'm here."

You slip off to the side and squat down where the bed shields you from view. You might not be overly self-conscious about being naked in front of her, but there are limits. When you stand back up, you present her with a large - if somewhat smelly - glass marble.

"This," you say, "is what being sufficiently paranoid looks like. I expect better from you in the future."

---

With a dull flight of indefinite duration ahead of you, you take the opportunity to finally finish up studying Banshee's power. Something you really should have gotten done long ago, if you really were as paranoid as you claim. But knowing that it would always be around later, you kept putting it off in favor of, well, everything else that was fucking your schedule in the ass. It's not as if Endbringers are vulnerable to glass.

You lean rather hard on this one, trying to shape it to your will. Ideally you'd want something that can conjure glass, rather than control it, because one smelly marble is less of a trump card than you'd like. Perhaps too hard, because when it finally sticks to your soul, it looks broken. Where are the power conduits?

No wait, that's not a break, it's a plug. One that fits perfectly into the weird truncated power you got from Newter's vision quest, way back when. You carefully bring them together.

Golden light fills the room, and hundreds - thousands - of glossily translucent black butterflies fly forth from your hands, only to shatter against the not-steel of the far wall.

Banshee hums a note, and the shards rise to dance in the air. You pluck one out with a mind-hand and bring it closer to study. Obsidian, that explains the color. A good news, bad news situation. The good news is that you're now carrying around a much larger reserve of emergency glass at all times, with none of the previous discomfort. The bad news apply entirely to your kidnappers.

"Nice," Banshee says. "Can you make more?"

Sure you can. It takes a bit of mental effort, connecting both parts of the power across the starscape of your soul, but nothing like the gargantuan hodgepodge you assembled to take down Behemoth. By the time the plane starts to descend you're almost waist-high in razor-sharp glass (a much better idea than it sounds, due to the company you keep).

As soon as wheels touch the runway, your knife is summoned into your hand and fully charged. Three long slashes open up a triangular doorway in the overpriced wall-stuff. Mind-hands lever it out of the way, revealing a rubbery white material beneath. Soundproofing, you assume. You reach out and lay your hand against it, only to find out that it too resists unmaking. More Tinker bullshit, or was it simply cast in one piece?

Still, whatever the white stuff is, it wasn't made with durability foremost in mind. Your knife may be spent, but your mind-hands are able to rip and tear the material, if slowly.

"Don't sing quite yet," you warn Banshee as she shifts impatiently. "I know you could do it faster, but they might hear you as you break through. We want this to be a surprise."

She fidgets, and starts to hum several times before catching herself while you tear away more and more material. How thick is this thing, anyway? You feel the plane coming to a stop, and the cell being hoisted up again.

"Hurry," Banshee says.

There! Tearing away the last bit of soundproofing reveals the ridged steel of an ordinary shipping container. That, you can unmake.

Fifteen seconds later the entire wall falls away, freed from the brackets and rails holding it in place. You throw yourself back into the cell and away from the opening. The mass of obsidian knives you were about to face-plant into pulls away in the nick of time, flowing over and around you to go shooting out of the hole you made. You have just enough time to be shocked at how much you must subconsciously trust this former S9 member to have pulled a stunt like that, before Banshee starts singing.

The sound of shattering glass and screams of pain accompany her song. Whatever was moving your cell has stopped, the machinery and/or operator taken out. Banshee sedately floats forward in a cloud of obsidian, which starts to form into her customary angel costume as soon as she's outside.

Only to be interrupted by a lance of light searing into her from above. She falls.

Shit! Your mind-hands grab the piece of inner wall you cut away and push it ahead of you as you leap after her, activating your own flight just enough to land softly beside her. A quick glance around shows you to be on a small airfield - no surprise there - with your former prison just about to be lowered onto the bed of a truck. You appear to be on the outskirts of a city, with skyscrapers visible in the distance. You don't recognize the place, but didn't really expect to either - you're not exactly well travelled.

Looking up, you see the cape who shot Banshee hovering above. He's wearing a red suit and broken red mask. Broken over the mouth and the right ear to be precise, which tells you that it used to contain a microphone and earpiece that did not like Banshee introducing herself. Unfortunately the man himself appears uninjured.

That's all you have time to see before he gestures towards you and you have to bring the piece of wall up to block another beam. Banshee, however, proves that she is down but not out as a cloud of obsidian flies up towards him. Peering around your shield you see him get cut to ribbons and start to fall, only to pop back to where he was a moment later - fully recovered but with his costume even worse for wear.

Lasers and Alabaster-style immortality? If it wasn't for sorcerer's sight, you'd think you just found another Trump like yourself. Not that you understand what sorcerer's sight is showing you. The cape is suspended in a web of glowing lines, some leading all the way to the distant city, others spreading out across the airfield. The web if shifting, too, almost if-

Yes. Another node in the web - another cape - comes flying over the shipping container. Forewarned, you thrust out with a mind-hand at extreme range and manage to stab him in the chest before he can get a bead on you. Then a second later he's fine again, and firing a laser that you only barely manage to block in time. You stab him some more to get him to back off.

They are sharing powers through the web, you realize. And there's another ten or so of them spread throughout the immediate area, all of them converging towards you. You drag Banshee off to hunker against the cab of the truck. This lets you have some cover from the rear, but unlike your makeshift Tinker-alloy shield, you do not trust it to absorb lasers in the long term. Still better than trying to make a run for it over open ground.

On a happier note, Banshee is rapidly emptying your cell of obsidian, and filling the air with same. Even as more and more of the Yangban - for it is clearly them - arrive, they are kept too busy restoring themselves to manage a coordinated offense. Wait, you mean restoring each other, you can see the little licks of power reaching out between them.

Some of them are flying, others zoom back and forth along the ground - trying to flank you, or possibly just trying to get away from the glass storm. Some of them try to put up forcefield bubbles to protect themselves - but the bubbles are not soundproof, and they invariably trap at least a few shards in there with them. So they are still getting sliced up, only slightly slower. Bubbling up is also an excellent way to gain Banshee's attention, and the bubbles quickly pop under the increased bombardment.

Despite having to focus almost entirely on simply keeping each other alive, they do still manage to get the odd laser off. But each beam is quickly interrupted by them having to be restored, and they can't manage a proper barrage. So far you've managed to catch every attack on your shield.

In other words the entire battlefield is a horrible, screaming, bloody mess of a stalemate, and their morale is unbelievable. Literally, you don't believe it. They must have some sort pain nullification and/or mind control mixed in there that you're too busy to pick out with sorcerer's sight, or they would have routed twice over by now.

Oh, no, you get it now. That's not healing, that's time travel. They're constantly sending each other back in time to before they were injured, so none of them actually remember any pain. No wonder they're having trouble coordinating their attacks - with the pounding they're taking they're barely experiencing the passage of time at all.

Over the next minute they do gradually start switching tactics, though. Some of them conjure vacuums to try to drag your shield away from you or pull Banshee out of cover, but your mind-hands hold strong. Thank Manton they can't make a vacuum covering you, because that would cut off Banshee's sound-based power in an instant.

One strange attack comes out of nowhere and leaves every inch of your exposed skin - which currently means all of it - covered in a thin layer of ice. It's almost a relief, actually, because the residual heat from their lasers was starting to get uncomfortable. The ice quickly melts under the cherry-red glow of your shield.

Banshee's song stutters, and enemies appear to flicker across your vision, changing positions from one moment to the next. They're using their time rewind power on the both of you too, trying to disrupt your concentration. But it has little effect when you're just hunkering down and defending yourself / telekinetically killing everything that moves. Neither of you need to know what you were doing two seconds ago to understand what you need to do next.

One of them almost gets you when he sneaks around behind you and starts cutting through the truck itself with a sustained laser. But you're able to deduce his position by the strands of the web reaching back to connect him to the others, and warn Banshee in time for her to send a gale of glass to meet him. The strands of power connecting him to the web flicker out, and don't come back.

Ha. With him going off on his own, none of his comrades were able to get line of sight on him in time to reverse his mortal injuries.

A slightly smarter fellow realizes that the shipping container suspended above you is a potential weapon, and turns his laser on the, uh, the crane vehicle thingy holding it up. He's interrupted before he can finish, but others take up the job. It's not exactly quick or subtle, though, and you have plenty of time to lift up Banshee and get out of the way.

Or so you thought - instead of falling straight down, the back end of the container drops first, causing the whole thing to swing forward. Then when the front end falls, it hits the cab of the truck and tips sideways on top of you. You're forced to throw Banshee out of the way, and your shield along with her.

You don't have time to get yourself out of the way, and you hear a joyous exclamation in Chinese as it lands on top of you. A few of the others start to join in, only to swallow their words when the tendrils of your shadow form slip out from underneath and reform, unharmed. Joke's on them, now you have a properly laser-proof backstop and don't need to worry about them sending a bigger group sneaking behind you.

Banshee, to her credit, never stopped singing at any point during this. But she seems disoriented, less able to react to what's happening. Three people manage to bubble up long enough to take proper aim, and you're not going to be able to block them all. You manage to catch two of the beams on your shield - it's now glowing more yellow than red, but still holding strong.

The last beam - you make a snap decision to not throw yourself in front of it. Banshee is a critical asset in this fight, yes... But between the two of you, she's the one who still sports Bonesaw-brand subdermal armor, and you know first-hand how well it handles heat-based attacks. Her song finally cuts off - but the song itself is just window dressing. The sound that actually propagates her control is generated directly by her power, not by her throat, at frequencies far above human hearing.

Despite the apparent silence, the storm of glass surges with renewed fury as she lashes out in pain. The three attackers are shredded (and instantly restored), and for a while no one manages to coordinate another attack. You don't think she can keep this up for long, though.

Then again, it's not as if you've been sitting idle this whole time. No, you've been studying the web, trying to trace the origin of the time rewind power. There! The Case 53 towards the back of their formation. You grip your knife, waiting for the right moment.

A man shifts position, a shield bubble pops... leaving you with a clear line of sight towards your target. You stab out, and a golden beam shoots from your knife to strike the rewinder - leaving him unhurt, but powerless. The same attack that brought Behemoth low. This technically outs Poltergeist and Esper as the same person, but every camera and communication device has already been destroyed by Banshee's song, and the witnesses will die momentarily.

Suddenly unable to restore themselves, the Yangban start dropping like flies. They are still getting regular regeneration from somewhere back in the city - multiple sources of it too, if you're any judge - but that only helps so much when your organs are 60% obsidian by volume. Finally the last one goes still, and obsidian rains down around you as Banshee releases it from her grip.

You slump down, letting your shield fall to the ground. The Behemoth-Felling Strike takes an awful lot out of you, and between it and all the obsidian you conjured, you're about as tired as you've ever been. But you can't rest now. You need to check on your partner.

Banshee's breathing is fast and shallow, and there are terrible burns all down her left side, speckled with globs of black glass that melted onto or into her. She's also scraped and bleeding all over from rolling naked across the tarmac when you threw her. But despite all that, her expression is gleeful. "We got them," she pants.

"Yeah. Can you get up?"

"Don't think I can. Manage the control. To fly right now." She's meant to have pain overrides along with the subdermal armor, but you know how it goes with tinkertech. One of these days you're going to have to bite the bullet and emptiness endow yourself enough surgical skill to get in there and do maintenance.

Despite her words, Banshee struggles against you when you try to lift her up, insisting that she can at least walk. She sort of can, as long as you support almost all of her weight with a pair of mind-hands. "Let's find you some painkillers," you say.

She stops walking at looks at the distant buildings for a while. "Yes. Painkillers. And a lesson. For those who. Would oppose us."

Certain applications of her power do not require fine control, after all. You watch a wave of shattered car windows travel down a congested highway at the speed of sound, until it washes over the city itself. Countless fragments glimmer in the sunlight as skyscrapers are denuded. It's beautiful, when you're too far away to see the people.

You could perhaps have stopped her. But you didn't. The CUI committed an act of war when they violated your borders and abducted your citizens. For their hubris, a Banshee raises her voice, and a city goes silent.

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: ???
Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound
Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit
Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies

There are certain requirements for writing a Worm fic that is faithful to the source material. And while I've hit the Taylor happiness requirements with room to spare, I'm way behind on my 'pointless and tedious cape fights' quota.

Besides, what's even the point of having 'all the powers' if you never get to use them?

Daniel Snuts · Sep 7, 2022

Can you not get kidnapped by a hostile superpower for one week without everything going to shit in your absence? Apparently not, because you don't even have time to rinse the sand out of your hair before you have to go deal with another international incident.

Esper 1:1. Now ESPER appeared unto Eligos, and spake: Thou hast worshipped the false idols of the ENEMY, and thus committed a grave sin.

(...)

Esper 3:15. Lead my children to the desert. And she pointed her arm towards the west, where the Silver Desert lay. And the faithful were filled with wonder and trepidation, for many strange tales were told of this place.

Esper 1
1. Now ESPER appeared unto Eligos, and spake: Thou hast worshipped the false idols of the ENEMY, and thus committed a grave sin.
2. But I am merciful in victory. Cast off thy graven images and kneel down in repentance, and I shall spare thee and all those who follow thee from mine wrath.
3. And Eligos fell to his knees in supplication, and cast off his mask, and cried out: Blessed ESPER, merciful thou art indeed! I reject the ENEMY and all his works, and will be thy faithful servant evermore!
4. And ESPER was pleased.
5. She spake: Get thee to the Bay of Brockton, and all those who would follow thee, and offer thine allegiance at the site of the first victory.
6. And I will make of thee a great faction, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great.
7. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him who curseth thee.
8. So Eligos departed, as ESPER had spoken unto him, and Ala and Ahrima and Amaymon went with him.
9. And Eligos took three out of ten among the unpowered, and all their substance that they had gathered; and they went forth to go into the Bay of Brockton.
10. But there remained those among the Fallen who heeded not the word of ESPER, and remained true to the ENEMY.
11. And so those unredeemed called upon Valefor, whose gaze holds dominion over all those he turneth it upon, and Valefor went forth to halt their exodus.
12. And it came to pass that Valefor fell upon Eligos, and Ala, and Ahrima, and Amaymon, and fastened them beneath his gaze.
13. And he said unto them: Mama is sore displeased with thee, and commands thy return forthwith.
14. But Eligos remained firm of will, and spake: Though thou mayest hold mine body in thrall, my heart and soul will forevermore belong to ESPER. Even should I be struck down by thee, I will never succumb, and never again abet the ENEMY.
15. And Valefor found his heart moved, and cried out: I cannot! For although thou art a heretic and traitor, thou art foremost mine brother, and I cannot strike thee down. Get thee hence, and let not the others catch thee.
16. And so Valefor averted his dread gaze, and the faithful continued their journey toward the Bay of Brockton.

(...)

Esper 3
1. But though they had at last secured the monument of first victory, they could not rest.
2. For the word of ESPER had not spread far, and so they were assailed on all sides by false heroes, who did not hold to the faith and thus unknowingly performed the work of the ENEMY.
3. And though Ala was sore wounded she held the line with her darkness and lightnings, and Eligos turned his blades upon all who came near, and Amaymon stole away the fell powers of the false heroes, and the wisdom of Ahrima did ever guide their blows.
3. But then in their hour of extremity did ESPER appear before them, and she spake: The fuck do you retards think you're doing?
4. And the glory of ESPER was such that the faithless did cease in their attacks, and the faithful threw themselves down in worship and proclaimed their fealty.
5. But though she had heeded their prayers, ESPER was still wroth. And in her wrath, she spake: Are you trying to attract cruise missiles? Because this shit is how you attract fucking cruise missiles. Do you have any idea how many governments you're pissing off right now?
6. Yeah, you'd better bow down and worship me, because I'm saving your dumb useless lives.
7. And ESPER turned her eyes upon each of her faithful in turn, and they all quailed beneath her gaze as it pierced their very souls. She spake: Blaster. Shaker. Trump. Thinker. And a passel of mortals.
8. I could shoot each of you with a pawnshop handgun, and you'd every one of you die. And you're trying to go up against the majority of the world's military- hey!
9. You, yes you in the back with the dumb outfit. Don't think I don't see you writing down everything I say. And thus ESPER turned her visage towards her Chronicler, and spake unto him: I can see you unnecessarily capitalizing my name right there. You better not be putting words in my mouth.
10. And so her Chronicler swore to perfectly capture each word as it fell from her lips, and ESPER turned her attention to the powered faithful, and spake: Who's the leader of this clown show?
11. Eligos rose up in response, and ESPER looked upon his vestments and exclaimed: Seriously? I'd be a lot more flattered if you could even remotely pull off my costume.
12. New commandment: No one gets to cosplay as ESPER. Especially not men. How does stoning sound as a punishment? Yeah, you lot like that Old Testament shit don't you? Writing guy, take note.
13. And so was the first commandment of ESPER given, and it was thus: Thou shalt not imitate the vestments of ESPER, for her glory is hers alone. And those that trespass against her commandments shall suffer death by stoning.
14. And so Eligos hastily stripped out of his garments in shame, lest he suffer death by stoning, and ESPER spake once more: Where was I? Oh right. Awful cosplay leader guy, heed my words:
15: Lead my children to the desert. And she pointed her arm towards the west, where the Silver Desert lay. And the faithful were filled with wonder and trepidation, for many strange tales were told of this place.
16: But when her faithful did not at once start moving, she spoke again to clarify her intent: That means get the fuck away from my monument and stop creating an international clusterfuck in my city, in case you were wondering.

Okay, that was easy enough to resolve actually. Probably your favorite international incident so far, edging out the previous champion.

During one of your patrols you happen to spot parahuman in civvies, whose power you'll not forget anytime soon. You wonder if you should swoop down and confront her right away. It would be an act of aggression, outing her in public... but would it be undeserved? Would she come here, out of costume and unannounced, if she wasn't up to something sneaky? Well, maybe she would, if she wanted to make the pilgrimage without making a huge production of it.

All things considered, she does deserve the benefit of doubt. You'll have a minion discreetly invite her to a private meeting.

---

It's interesting that without her costume, she looks barely older than you (which means that she looks younger than you do right now, as Esper).

"Did you inherit the title when the previous Alexandria fell?" you ask, idly twirling your baton. "Or does your Brute rating repel Father Time as well?"

"The latter," she says curtly. She shows no reaction to you dispelling any doubt that you know who she is.

"Interesting," you say blandly. "So, what brings you to my city unannounced, library girl?"

She's too good to show any reaction at the nickname, either. "Your city, Changer?"

You are watching her Thinker power firing, of course, but without days of study you have no hope of deciphering what it's telling her. Not that you particularly care, it's quite weak. Good memory and an eye for detail, basically. Also, she's about to explain exactly what it's been telling her anyway, as a show of force. All you have to do is raise an eyebrow.

"Your face and body are subtly different from the last time I saw you, in ways that cannot be chalked up to a change in diet - or in your case, metabolism. And Panacea - who knows you personally - said 'she can fix the rest later' when she gave you your new body, but didn't make it match your old one. Though I notice you've kept most of the curves."

See? She explained everything. "Very good," you say. "Now, where were we? Oh yes, you were questioning my sovereignty."

Being Alexandria she is used to punching above her weight class in Thinker duels, by leveraging the implicit threat of her literally punching people if they get too clever. Esper, meanwhile, can revoke her powers at will. So because you do not fear her physically, you do not fear her mentally.

That's probably what her power is telling her right now. Yes, Alexandria's Thinker power, Esper's confident body language does indeed indicate that the power that killed Behemoth will work on you as well. Except in your case, one strike is all it would take to render you helpless. You spot just the tiniest hint of 'I fucked up' in her change of posture. But just the tiniest hint - she's determined not to show weakness.

"Last I checked this was still US soil, and as such under the jurisdiction of the Protectorate."

"Such is the polite fiction," you agree. "Are we being polite?"

"We're on the same side, are we not?"

"Hm. I admit I haven't studied the finer points diplomatic etiquette, but when one side opens by covertly bringing weapons of mass destruction onto what may or may not be foreign soil..."

"I... could politely leave?" she suggests, letting another hint of 'I fucked up' slip out. At this point it must be deliberate - but just because it's deliberate doesn't mean it's not sincere.

And you are on the same side, are you not? If not for her, you would be dead and Behemoth would be alive. Now if Eidolon had shown up...

Decision made, you call for a minion and give them instructions: "Please escort our honored guest out. Of the city."

Alexandria gives you a shallow bow, and meekly leaves. Huh. That was strangely anticlimactic for a meeting with the most (politically) powerful parahuman on the continent. Which is... good. You're new at the 'being sovereign' game, but international incidents being resolved anticlimactically strikes you as a good thing. The 'burn Washington to the ground' question is put off for another day.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 8, 2022

You really should treat your little trip to China as a wake-up call. What are you even doing with your life? Running yourself ragged, playing at being a queen/administrator? Aside from Banshee, have you studied a single power to completion since Behemoth fell? No, you have not. What's wrong with you? Are you content with what you have?

You better not be. Yes, you beat Behemoth. But it was not a clean victory. You were lucky, insanely lucky, to even survive. It was a skin-of-your-teeth kind of victory, entirely reliant on the aid of people who clearly cannot be trusted. You need to get your head back in the game, so that the next time an Endbringer comes gunning for you, you will not be a slave to luck.

But you wasted so much time. And while the CUI opened you eyes to the problem, they did so by wasting even more of your time. In order to catch up, in order to be ready... you're going to have to tap into the strategic power reserve, aren't you? Yeah. You really wish you didn't have to tap into the strategic power reserve, but you do.

It's going to suck, but it's entirely your own fault.

---

Sweeping reforms are implemented, ousting your various identities from the government. Innocents are subjected to crippling doses of emptiness endowment to take up the slack. Your secretary gazes worshipfully at you as you burn her future to ashes, for the crime of leal and faithful service. The more you trust and rely on someone, the more you hurt them.

Parahuman minions old and new are given instructions, patrol schedules are hammered out.

"You're in charge while I'm away," you tell Aisha.

She nods. "Order 66?" she asks.

"You have authority to execute order 66, should it become necessary," you confirm. Order 66 being 'cash in Shatterbird's kill order'. "Ensure that it does not become necessary."

---

It's not quite your usual Quicksilver costume. You had a new mask made, same shape as the old but with a smooth mirror finish. You liked the the old irregular cracked mirror mask, but it really wouldn't have gone well with Accord's psychotic OCD. If you were to accidentally set him off... Well, having to murder your way out through an entire team of villains and two dozen lovingly crafted death traps wouldn't really fit with Quicksilver's non-combatant persona.

Accord wouldn't have agreed to meet you without researching you first, of course. He knows what your regular costume looks like, and understands that you changed it specifically to appease him. That's fine. Accord likes being ~~catered to~~ respected. The meeting will go a lot smoother if he thinks you fear him that much.

Since you were updating your costume anyway, you decided to get new shoes as well: The highest high heels you could find, with the same mirror finish. To think that there was a time when you couldn't sprint along a tightrope wearing those. They make you look helpless though, to people who think that way. More Accord-bait.

You do indeed catch a tiny, microscopic hint of a smile as he looks you over. Accord is a Thinker of systems and solutions, which happens to include mechanical systems and solutions as well. Unlike Tinkers, he makes physics his bitch in an entirely consensual fashion. Which only serves to make his full-face mask even more impressive.

Entirely mechanical yet capable of detecting and conveying the entire range of human expressions. No electronics, no tinkertech glow, just precision engineering and genius design. It's more impressive than any of the death traps, even the one in the lobby with the self-adjusting flensing wires (keeping industry and forge wisdom active as you made your way through the building was educational, to say the least).

You smile back. Look at him, so pleased with your apparent submission that it doesn't even occur to him that you're playing him. "Thank you for agreeing to this meeting." You give him a curtsey that you spent several hours practicing.

"I always make time for fascinating people such as yourself. I assume one of my Ambassadors has caught your interest, and you wish to study their power? Or perhaps I myself?" He does a 'humble' little half-bow as he gestures towards his own chest with a flourish.

"Lizardtail. He does regenerate on his own, does he not? In addition to granting the effect to others?"

"He does."

"Excellent. Regeneration is a type of power that I have been trying to track down for quite some time. My last prospect, a nearly indestructible Brute, ironically went and got himself killed before we could come to an arrangement."

"Overconfidence," Accord commiserates. "A slow and insidious killer. Be assured that no such sloppiness will be allowed on my watch."

"Will fifteen thousand dollars be sufficient?" If he has done his homework, he'll know that you once offered ten thousand to a Ward. It would not do to offer the same for one of his capes.

"Let me offer you an alternative. As you probably know, Lizardtail is fairly new to my organization, along with several others. If you could take a look at all of them, and share any insight you gain on their powers..."

"I'm afraid I cannot take on such a commission at this time. My schedule will become quite full in the near future."

"Very well. Fifteen thousand will do, then. My receptionist will set things up. Do be careful with him until you get a handle on his abilities. Permanent damage will result in extreme penalties." Accord naturally understands that properly studying a regenerator will include a certain amount of wear and tear.

"Of course."

"I must say, I'm somewhat tempted to hire you to study me as well. Do keep that in mind, once your schedule clears up."

"Are you having problems?"

"None... beyond the obvious. I'm sure you're well aware." The way he flies into a murderous rage if he spots a painting that isn't hanging perfectly level? Yes, everyone is aware. "No, it's vanity, of a sort. I do so love a properly put together piece of machinery. I imagine a power must be the most intricate mechanism of all, and I would know more of mine."

"Ah. The technical details. I'm afraid that's impossible."

"I could pay very well."

"It's not that. When I gained my power, I also became fluent in a language unlike any on earth. So far I've been unable to translate the finer points of power mechanics into English."

The eyebrows of his mask shoot up. "Truly? Interesting." He presses a button on his desk and speaks into an intercom. "Have Codex prepared and sent to my office." He turns back to you. "I would test this, if you don't mind?"

You do sort of mind - you want to get on with things - but everything is going so well and it would be a shame to ruin it now. It did not escape you how he made arrangements first, and asked your permission second. You suppose this is how you get, if no one ever stands up to you (because you killed everyone who did). Whatever. You can spare a couple of minutes to make sure Accord doesn't do something you'll both regret.

Codex arrives soon enough. Her costume is almost identical to yours, also featuring a white evening dress. Her mask is a featureless white thing that covers her entire face. Her blonde hair is obviously dyed, as opposed to your natural (shapeshifted) color. She's also considerably shorter than you even after subtracting your unreasonable footwear, and more heavy-set as well. You give her the friendly smile of someone meeting a less attractive woman wearing the same outfit.

Accord is looking at you expectantly, not performing introductions. So that's how it's going to be? "Thinker," you declare after studying her glow for a bit. "A temporary enhancement, already fading."

"Well done. Please tell her something about a power."

You comply, explaining the finer details of how the organic/inorganic sensing component of Faultline's power is woven into the machinery that generates the destructive force.

"It's a language," is Codex's verdict. "She's not just making nonsense sounds. There's- I don't think I understand the grammar. Is partxe a noun or a verb?"

"Yes." You give her the friendly smile of someone meeting an inferior Thinker. Accord chuckles in what he no doubt imagines is an avuncular manner.

---

♦Topic: Geography and factions
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Posted by: Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted on August 8, 2011

Note: This post is updated frequently. A version with full revision history may be found here.

More tourist information may be found here, up-to-date radiation advisory here.

Landmarks
=========

The Silver Desert:
An irregular patch of silver sand covering roughly 23,000 square feet on the edge of downtown. It's believed to have been created by a parahuman attack on the mercenary team known as Faultline's Crew, as their headquarters was located in the area now covered by the desert. No fatalities occurred as a result of the attack, as it took all day for the building to fully sink into the sand. Seismic scans indicate that the sand extends down to the bedrock, and reveal no trace of the sunken building - or, for that matter, the aquifer that really should be present.

There were initially rumors of people wandering into the desert and never returning (which is odd considering that it's less than 70 yards across at its widest point) and the authorities warned people to stay away. This probably scared off slighly more people than it attracted. In any case, there was no statistically significant change in the number of missing person reports filed after its appearance, and the desert remained a minor curiosity.

Things changed after the Slaughterhouse 9 attack, when the desert and the area surrounding it was the only part of the city spared from Shatterbird's glass tornado. The area now houses a small cult that worships the desert as their protector. The cult declined as the desert seemingly did nothing to protect them from attacks by the Teeth, but recently had a resurgence when they were joined by/merged with villain group New Dawn.

Bakuda's Folly:
A perfectly circular area 615 yards in diameter, located in the industrial district. Every living thing that enters its boundaries is turned into amethyst. It was created when the villain Bakuda accidentally set off an exotic tinkertech bomb she was working on. Attempts to send drones into the area to find and disable the source of the effect has failed, as it also interferes with electronic devices.

The area is fenced off and marked as dangerous, which has done nothing to deter a cottage industry of 'sculptors': People with cages on long poles who make a living by turning small animals into amethyst and selling them.

Crater Lake:
A flooded sinkhole in the middle of downtown, created by Leviathan during his attack on the city. A single half-submerged building forms a sort of island near the center of the lake. Fairly unremarkable as Brocktonite landmarks go.

The Dog Park:
The territory of the villain Hellhound, located on the south-eastern edge of the city and extending into the forest beyond. Hellhound is the last surviving member of the Undersiders, a villain group that tried to establish themselves as warlords after Leviathan's attack. She has the ability to empower dogs, turning them into monsters the size of trucks, but they gradually return to their original size if they leave her presence. She keeps people out of her territory by empowering every stray dog she comes across and letting them range as they will.

The borders of her territory are thus both gradual and ever-shifting, centered on wherever she happens to be at the moment: The closer you get to her the bigger and more populous the dogs become. While most dogs simply wander as they will and regularly return to her to be re-empowered, she also has several more well-trained dogs that she sends out to collect tribute (in the form of food) from neighboring areas. Do not approach the Dog Park.

The Grove of Flesh:
Formerly Captain's Park, the area was transformed into its current state by the biokinetic Panacea during an altercation with the Slaughterhouse 9. It was originally believed that Panacea died in the encounter, but she emerged from the grove and helped heal the injured when Behemoth attacked. She then returned to the grove and hasn't been seen since. No one knows what she's doing in there, as no person or unmanned vehicle to enter the grove has ever returned. As the grove does not appear to be spreading, it has been left alone for the time being.

The area is fenced off, but the fence adds little deterrent that is not already provided by the black-leafed carrion trees, the venomous tentacle-vines and the razor-tooth grass. Despite all this, every so often a terminally ill person will force their way into the grove hoping to encounter Panacea within.

Behemoth's Rest:
A giant concrete slab, laid down to contain the radioactive remains of Behemoth. The main tourist attraction of Brockton Bay, every day thousands of people make a pilgrimage to the site to leave offerings for fallen kin or pray for future victories against the Endbringers.

The villain group New Dawn almost triggered an international incident when they tried to claim the site for themselves. There was a tense standoff for several hours as the Protectorate tried to gather enough forces to evict them without civilian casualties, but they ended up leaving on their own before the order to attack was given. A spokesperson from New Dawn later claimed that they left because they received a revelation from Esper herself, and that she told them to 'lead her children to the desert'.

Parahumans
==========

Heroes
------

Esper:
The woman who killed an Endbringer. For more in-depth discussion about Esper, her powers, motivations, activities, appearance, etc, see here, here, here, here, here and here.

Protectorate ENE:
The local branch of the Protectorate was almost completely wiped out by the successive attacks of Leviathan, the S9 and Behemoth. They were bolstered by the surviving members of independent hero group New Wave, but the Protectorate is still working to transfer more members there as Brockton Bay becomes one of the largest tourist destinations in the United States. Currently led by the most senior surviving member, Assault (Striker, kinetic energy manipulation).

Villains
--------

The Merchants:
Led by an elusive parahuman known as Trousers (yes, really) (powers unknown), the Merchants are the largest gang in Brockton Bay, . As their name suggests, they mostly deal in the sale of drugs.

The Teeth:
Originally from Brockton Bay, but were driven out and almost destroyed the last time the Slaughterhouse 9 visited, more than ten years ago. They've since recovered, and returned to take advantage of the recent power vacuum. Led by the Butcher (all the powers).

The Bitten:
Despite the name, no relation to the Teeth. Led by Poltergeist (Shaker, telekinesis). Originally thought to be just a small gang of thieves, this perception changed when the Slaughterhouse 9 attacked. Once the dust settled the group had not only claimed five(!) bounties for slain S9 members, but also convinced Shatterbird to defect(!!) and join them(!!!). Between their revealed power and their ambiguous kill order status (not just Shatterbird - Poltergeist was also recruited into the S9, but later turned on them), everyone is extremely wary of these guys.

New Dawn:
A 'heretical' offshoot of the Endbringer-worshipping sect the Fallen. When Behemoth died they 'lost faith' and instead began worshipping Esper as the savior of humanity. Came to Brockton Bay for obvious reasons. Claim to be in communication with Esper. Led by Eligos (Shaker, aerokinesis) or possibly Esper (Blaster, omgwtfbbq).

Fenrir's Children:
The remnants of the formerly most powerful gang in the city, Empire 88. The Empire lost all but one of their capes when the Slaughterhouse 9 attacked, and the sole survivor was killed shortly before Behemoth attacked. Leadership status unclear, but their only cape is the recently triggered Rend (Shaker, Manton-unlimited matter annihilation(!)).

Hellhound:
(Master, minion-empowering) See the Dog Park.

The Sisterhood of Steel:
The cybernetically enhanced minions of deceased villain Mr Steel Yo Girl, who have sworn to stand vigil over their master's grave until they succumb to lack of maintenance. Not hostile unless provoked (note: suggesting that their love is the result of a Master effect and/or that Mr Steel Yo Girl is not worth dying for will provoke them).

Rogues
------

Cryolord:
(Shaker, cryokinesis) See the Cryolord tracker.

Quicksilver:
(Thinker/Trump, power vision) Works as a consultant - if there's something about your power you don't understand, you can pay Quicksilver to take a look at it. Or, if she thinks it's interesting enough, she'll pay you. Has not been seen since the Behemoth attack, unknown whether she's still alive and in the city. (UPDATE: HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS HANG ON REWRITING EVERYTHING)

(Showing Page 112 of 610)

► Thus Spaketh
Replied on August 16, 2011:
I checked the wiki, it lists Poltergeist as Shaker 4, Ghost as Breaker 3 and Imp as ???. These are the guys who took down a majority of the S9? Either Imp is Everything 12 or someone messed up big time assigning ratings.

► will_eat_anything
Replied on August 16, 2011:
I heard they were going to put Master 6 on the lot of them until they can figure out how they got freaking Shatterbird to turn coat.

► yourstruly
Replied on August 16, 2011:
Is ghost still part of Bitten? She hasn't been seen lately.

► Answer42
Replied on August 16, 2011:
@yourstruly
Same question, but for Animos and the Teeth.

► electrolytesaber
Replied on August 16, 2011:
What do you mean, ambiguous kill order status? How is that a thing?

► Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied on August 16, 2011:
Joining the S9 comes with an automatic kill order, so Shatterbird and Poltergeist both have them. But while the Bitten executed 5 kill orders, they only cashed in the bounties for 3 of them. Poltergeist claims they're 'running net positive on kill orders', and that she 'traded in' the last two in exchange for clearing theirs.

Now, legally that's nonsense. Kill orders don't work like that. But in practice... 'Geist says that she was forced to join the S9 under duress and betrayed them at the earliest opportunity. If true (and I personally believe it) that should be enough to get her kill order lifted on its own, but the PRT has not made an official statement on the matter yet. As for Shatterbird, well, as long as she's willing to play at being a regular gang member and not nuke any more cities no one really wants to rock that boat, kill order or not.

► Poltergeist (Verified cape)
Replied on August 17, 2011:
5.5, if you please. Dragon agreed to give me half credit for Siberian.

► long_distance_chef
Replied on August 17, 2011:
Yeah, sure, Shaker 4 just casually hanging out with Dragon and killing Siberian. I'm on to you, Poltergeist!

► Poltergeist (Verified cape)
Replied on August 17, 2011:
Ok, I admit it. The unconfirmed reports of my Mover 2 rating are in fact true!
There, mystery solved.

► A Mooning of Werewolves
Replied on August 17, 2011:
I don't know what she just said there, because I've put Poltergeist on my blocklist until the PRT confirms whether she is really a Master 6. And you should too!

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 110, 111, 112, 113, 114 ... 608, 609, 610

(Showing Page 553 of 610)

► shpwrckd
Replied on September 23, 2011:
I might join New Dawn, if they accept non-cape worshippers. I mean, Esper *is* the savior of humanity.

► Syzygy
Replied on September 23, 2011:
@shpwrckd
You should read their made-up bible, it's hilarious.

► liteninbolt
Replied on September 23, 2011:
@Bagrat
Don't you mean (Blaster, omgwtfbblgum)?

► cowple
Replied on September 23, 2011:
SOMEONE GET THAT GIRL SOME GUM!

► lolcust
Replied on September 23, 2011:
DID ANYONE GET THAT GIRL SOME GUM?

► janitor of farts
Replied on September 23, 2011:
I THINK WE SHOULD GET HER MORE ENDBRANGERS INSTED

► Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied on September 23, 2011:
@lolcust
Yes. Esper has received sponsorship offers from at least five different gum manufacturers, and that's just the ones that announced their overtures publicly. Despite the meme never being funny.

► lolcust
Replied on September 23, 2011:
YOURE FACE ISNT FUNNY

► A Manslaughter of Crows
Replied on September 23, 2011:
Brockton Bay: Voted most dangerous city in America

S9: What's the worst that could happen?

Brockton Bay:

S9: Oh

► Seven Chickens In A Trenchcoat
Replied on September 23, 2011:
Brockton Bay: Voted most dangerous city in America

Behemoth: It'll be fine

Narrator: It was not fine

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 551, 552, 553, 554, 555 ... 608, 609, 610

Daniel Snuts · Sep 9, 2022

Handy tips for fighting the Butcher:

1. Don't.

2. No, seriously, don't.

Much like Lung was for the ABB, and you are for BITN, the Butcher is the lynchpin that allows the Teeth to exist. That has allowed it to thrive for years on end. When a parahuman has this level of power, the details of what minions they choose to surround themselves with barely even matter. They lay their will upon the world, and the world bends to accommodate them.

Having two of them in the same city seldom works out, long term.

---

Handy tips for fighting the Butcher:

1. Don't kill the Butcher.

This is the first rule, because it's the most important. If you kill the Butcher, the soul (mind-state, psychic imprint, whatever) of every previous Butcher will latch onto you. They will grant you a portion of the powers they had in life, and drive you insane. You can't kill the Butcher, you can only volunteer to become its new host.

Don't kill the Butcher. It's the first rule, because it's the most important. But it's also the last rule, because thirteen people already ignored the first rule. It's the last rule, because it's the last of your problems.

2. Don't try to ambush the Butcher. The Butcher can see through walls.

3. Don't try to sneak up on the Butcher. The Butcher has danger sense.

4. Don't engage the Butcher in melee. The Butcher has six sets of Brute powers and the ability to inflict unnatural, festering wounds.

5. Don't engage the Butcher at range. The Butcher has perfect accuracy with all weapons. Perfect as in 'bullets go around corners to hit you' perfect. The Butcher also never runs out of ammunition.

6. Actually, whatever range you try to engage the Butcher at doesn't matter, because the Butcher can teleport. The Butcher teleporting also causes an explosion at the destination, because of course it does.

7. The Butcher can also induce crippling pain just by looking at you, but do you even care at this point?

8. Don't try to take the Butcher alive. The Butcher can induce mindless rage just by looking at you. If it looks like you're about to succeed in a non-lethal takedown, the Butcher will make you go nuts and kill it instead.

9. Don't kill the Butcher.

That looks like an imposing set of rules, doesn't it? But you know the secret:

Rules are for losers.

The kind of people who care more about rules than about winning will never amount to anything. Rules fucking suck. For example, the ones about background checks when buying a firearm.

Handy tips for selling firearms:

1. Don't sell to people who refuse to show ID.

2. Don't sell to underage kids.

3. Don't sell to people whose background check comes back 'deceased'.

4. Especially don't sell to known supervillains.

It takes special talent to be able to fail all of these criteria, but you're just that good.

You had to make your own anti-materiel rifle from scratch. Yes, it's magic. Everything you make is magic. To make it, you melted down and reforged the golden armor you tore off the invincible dragon-robot that tried to arrest you a while back. The resulting weapon is taller than you are, and would be heavier as well if not for the magic making it light as a feather in your hands.

The bullets are magic too, forged of the same orichalcum.

Once there was a maiden...
...or was it two? Or maybe three, or fourteen?
She found it quite confusing to be so many people.
Because she could never agree with herself,
she often had trouble deciding what to do.
All this confusion tended to make her angry,
and she usually ended up doing angry things.
"Violence is a democracy," said she.

Even without magic, the effective range of your rifle would be many times that of the Butcher's sensory powers. The time between the bullet entering the range of her danger sense and it hitting her will be roughly one hundredth of a second. The Butcher does not have enhanced reflexes.

You carefully take note of wind-speed, range and elevation, and adjust your sights. The scope is magic too. Alas, poor Faultline. The gem in her amulet will have crumbled to dust by now - you had to adjust the geomancy of the Silver Desert to produce a clear crystal for your magic optics. You'll restore it and send her a replacement once you get back.

Your skill as a sniper is also magic, a product of emptiness endowment. Not too much - you can't risk overdrawing your capacity for learning, not with what's coming up next - but certainly enough to hit a stationary target.

The Butcher is stationary right now, sitting down to dinner in the center of your crosshairs. You hold your breath and gently, gently squeeze the trigger.

The blast deafens you. In the next instant you've sent the rifle Elsewhere, and you're flying away at top speed before the bullet has crossed half the distance. In case you missed, you'll be gone long before the Butcher can even figure out where the shot came from, much less cover the two and a half miles separating you - given the modest range of her teleportation, it will take her over fifty jumps.

If you did miss, you'll just try again tomorrow. And the day after, and the next. You have bullets to spare, and you only have to get lucky once.

You'll find out whether your aim was true sometime in the next second.

---

"How can I help you, miss?" the receptionist at the PRT HQ (which, in the wake of Leviathan dashing the Rig against the shore, is now also the Protectorate HQ) asks. There's a certain tension in her voice, what with you being a non-hero cape and all. And probably also because of the bow you're carrying - it's clearly a weapon of war rather than sporting equipment.

"I'd like to be sent to the birdcage," you say. The receptionist hits the silent alarm. Well, that works too. You give her your best reassuring smile (it's not super good, at the moment) and wait for it to bring someone with more authority your way.

After only a few seconds, Assault comes shooting out of the stairwell at superhuman speed. When he recognizes you he dumps his momentum and comes to an instant stop.

"Quicksilver?"

"That's not my name anymore," you tell him.

"Oh? What do you call yourself now?"

"Butcher XV."

The receptionist hits the non-silent alarm. Klaxons blare, and a pair of containment foam turrets descend from the ceiling. You stand there and let yourself get foamed long enough to heave a deep sigh. Then you teleport away, leaving a ~~Quicksilver~~Butcher-shaped foam mold behind.

The receptionist flinches away and huddles down in her chair when you appear behind her desk and reach in her direction. You ignore her - you're just here for the closest loose object you can find, which happens to be the keyboard of her computer. You snatch it up and place it against your bow. As you draw back the string, it thins and lengthens into an arrow, the brittle plastic at the tip impossibly hardening into a bodkin point.

One of the more peculiar powers you inherited, the ability to turn absolutely anything into ammunition. The way the keys shifted around such that the four sides of the arrowhead spell out STOP didn't even take any concentration from you, it just happened on its own.

You fire the keyboard-arrow into the more distant foam turret, and it pierces deep into the armored mechanism. The turret briefly gives off a terrible grinding noise as it tries to traverse towards you, before growing still with a burst of sparks and smoke.

Meanwhile you've dropped your bow and leapt up to grapple the nearer turret with your bare hands. You flip yourself around to brace your feet against the ceiling, and heave. Metal shrieks in protest as you straighten your legs and rip the turret right out of its socket. Containment foam spews from the broken feed line, expanding and hardening to seal the wound.

With cranelike grace you twist in the air to land on your feet, just in time to see half a dozen armored PRT troopers burst into the room.

You drop the broken turret and raise your hands. "Please. I already turned myself in. It's hard enough not to kill everyone in the room without you giving me reasons."

Assault motions for the PRT troopers to stand down. "Someone turn off the alarm," he orders. "We're all friends here."

"Thank you."

"Things didn't explode when you teleported," he notes.

"Fifteen remains a Thinker/Trump," you say. "A certain finesse with powers is only to be expected. We were- I was being polite. Now, the birdcage? Please?"

"What did you do to deserve that?" He does an adequate job of hiding his worry in the face of an insane murderer stepping into his building, you judge. You did not expect the designated comic relief of his team to deal with authority being thrust upon him so well.

"This incarnation? Nothing, yet. Shall I read you the Butcher's file?"

"I'll get the director," Assault decides.

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: ???
Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound
Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit
Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies
Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow
Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance

Who needs sorcerer's sight and tedious hours of study, when the Butcher's powers will helpfully sear themselves into your soul on their own? Fourteen charms for the price of zero.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 12, 2022

When the call went out for volunteers, I jumped on it. This was it. This was the difference I wanted to make when I signed up for the academy. I was young and foolish then, of course, and life is never quite so clear-cut in retrospect as the future your younger self imagines.

Still, I have done my part in making the world a less awful place. But if I could make some small contribution, by word or deed, towards putting the Butcher in the Birdcage, that would be something else. A feather in the old cap, something to tell the hypothetical grandkids about.

Not so young anymore, but still plenty foolish. It never really registered that what I was volunteering for was, essentially, being stuck in a tiny metal box with Hannibal fucking Lecter.

Never mind the restraints, Director Olsen had said, the restraints are there to make the paperwork look good. If I sent you out with an unrestrained prisoner the union would be crawling up my ass before you left city limits. If the Butcher asks you to let her out of the restraints, do it. If she tears them off without asking - and believe me, she could if she wanted to - you smile and nod.

Not minding the restraints was a lot easier for the first half hour or so, before the similarities to a certain movie occurred to me. She hasn't said anything so far, but-

"A moment of your time, Agent Starling?"

Shit. Of course she's seen it too. "It's 'Trooper Daniels', ma'am," I respond as politely as I can manage. I really don't want her to start thinking in that direction. Agent Starling ultimately lived, but not all her colleagues were as lucky.

They should have sent a psychologist, not a PRT grunt.

"Do you have a knife, Trooper Daniels?"

Get this through your heads: You're not a prisoner transport, you're a taxi. No, a fucking limousine. If the Butcher wants you to stop for donuts, you stop for donuts. If she wants to get out and stretch her legs I hope to god you'll be on a deserted-ass stretch of road with no civilians, because you're going to stop and let her out.

I really wish she had asked for donuts instead. "I do, ma'am."

"Show me."

This is the part where Dr Lecter tells me to cut myself and I do it, isn't it? No, it's OK, the Butcher doesn't have Mast- the Butcher does have Master powers. Fuck! She can induce berserk rage. This shit is so far above my pay grade, it's not even funny.

My hand goes to the hilt of the PRT standard-issue multi-purpose utility tool and emergency close quarters combat implement. Yes, that's really how it's described in the manual. It's a knife. As far as I can tell after years in the service, the multiple purposes are cleaning your nails and opening beer cans in an ostentatiously macho fashion. We're city cops, not soldiers on campaign.

Say, there's an idea. "I'm sorry ma'am, I misspoke. I only have a standard-issue multi-purpose utility tool and emergency close quarters combat implement."

That gets a chuckle. A giggle, almost. It makes her sound incredibly young. The tension lifts a bit, at least, at this display of humanity. Yes, humanity. Don't think about horror movies featuring creepy little girls. I said, don't think about those. Stop it, brain!

"Ah, bureaucracy. That will have to do, Trooper Daniels. Show me."

I draw the knife and hold it up on an open palm, careful not to brandish it in any way that could be interpreted as threatening. Really, what are my options here? I don't show it to her, making her angry?

"Excellent," she says. "Now, stab me."

If she has second thoughts about going to the Birdcage, you may verbally attempt to change her mind, should you deem it safe. Maybe try begging, or cajoling. Under no circumstances are you to employ violence against the Butcher. It won't help.

"Uh..." Do whatever the Butcher asks. Don't employ violence against the Butcher. Yeah, well, what if she asks me to employ violence against her, I didn't think to ask. "Are you dissatisfied with your current host, ma'am?"

"You couldn't kill me if you tried, Trooper Daniels. In the arm, if it helps your peace of mind. Or the leg? Non-vital area of your choice. Now, please." Her voice breaks halfway through, going back to sounding like a little girl.

Just fucking go. I'll kick it upstairs and try to get the roads cleared ahead of you, just try not to get into a fender bender before then. Fuck all speed limits, and if she loses it before you get there, may god have mercy on your souls.

"I..."

"Do it now, you dumb fucker! Do it! I'll suck your cock! I'll eat your children! I-"

I stab her. In an attempt to overcome her Brute rating I put my whole body behind it, and end up driving the knife all the way through her bicep and pinning her arm to the wall.

She lets out a long shuddering breath, almost a moan. When she next speaks, her voice is back to normal.

"Thank you, Trooper Daniels. Again, please." Like flipping a switch, she's once again perfectly calm.

And why wouldn't she be? There's no blood, and the wound closes up as soon as I pull the knife out. Which takes some effort - it's like it was stabbed into a tree trunk, not human flesh. But I nevertheless decline her offer to rip her other hand free of the restraints and do it for me.

There's not even any blood on the knife.

After another seven, rather less dramatic stabs - I keep count, knowing they'll want it in the report - she tells me to stop.

"I apologize for my unseemly conduct earlier, Trooper Daniels," she says. "Please disregard any untoward comments I let slip in the heat of the moment."

The repetitive mechanical task of stabbing the insane supervillain gave me a chance to calm down, and my hand barely shakes at all as I return the knife to it's sheath.

"Don't worry about it," I say with feigned calm. "I don't have any kids, and I wouldn't put my dick between your teeth if you paid me to do it. Uh, no offense."

Another girlish laugh. "None taken. Is there anything I can do - not involving teeth - to repay you for your assistance?"

"Weeell..." I am genuinely curious about one thing - and the director will want to know too. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you manage to kill the old Butcher? I mean, you're... uh, Quicksilver was..."

"A mere Thinker, yes. Against a foe with superhuman strength and toughness, perfect accuracy, teleportation, danger sense. Of course everyone is curious."

You consider the man in front of you, and his question. You don't know him very well, but you can draw certain conclusions about a man who would join the PRT. Who would put his life on the line, for a charade of cops and robbers.

Trooper Daniels... is not extraordinary. Dutiful, perhaps. Brave, certainly, volunteering to escort the Butcher. But not a deep thinker. Not necessarily stupid - he might have the sense to question a lie told to his face. But it takes an extraordinary man to question what he is told implicitly, every day of his life. To watch a movie and recognize that after subtracting the protagonist's uncanny ability to shrug off bullet wounds to the shoulder and shoot twelve mooks with an eight-round magazine, what is left is not a documentary.

Trooper Daniels is not an extraordinary man. He believes that the opposing political party is full of evil liars (he's not wrong). On some level he is aware that his favored party is also full of evil liars. But he keeps voting for them anyway, because they tell him what he wants to hear, and perhaps they're not lying this time? "Politicians!" he'll say to his friends, and everyone will nod sagely. It never occurs to them to take any action beyond this. It never occurs to them that things could be other than how they are.

Trooper Daniels is, to put it simply, a normie. And what of it? It's not a terminal condition. And in some cases, treatable.

"It's a bit of a secret," you say finally. "Turn off the microphones, lean in close, and let me whisper in your ear."

To his dubious credit, he does. Putting his ear right next to those teeth he dreaded so much. Brave, certainly. But not a deep thinker. But such things are not always punished. You do not bite. You merely whisper.

Four words.

He draws back, and you smile. A lot of things were said about Trooper Daniels just now. Few of them are true any more. Trooper Daniels has tasted the fruit.

Sometimes four words is all it takes to completely shatter a man's conception of the world, and his place within it. A single glance behind the curtain is enough, to reveal the existence of a curtain.

Hypersonic depleted uranium round.

"You what?"

"I sent Butcher XV to the Birdcage," I repeat. "After she turned herself in and specifically requested that I do so. Given that reports of Butcher XII show him succumbing within hours of possession, I chose not to bring it before a jury. Now can we please get the roads cleared?"

A cacophony of voices wash over me, speaking without regard for each other. I'm insane, I have no authority, I should have kept the Butcher in a holding cell (and I'm the insane one?). I'm tempted to mute the call, but I might miss something actually important.

"Do we know where the transport is now?" Director Enfield's voice cuts through the hubbub.

"We're tracking its GPS position, yes," I answer.

"Two words: Cruise missile."

"That's- would that work?" Director Jameson asks.

"No," Chief Director Costa-Brown says firmly. "We have put Thinkers on this scenario before. It's unclear exactly what would happen - depending on the precise circumstances, the Butcher could jump to the person who pressed the button, the person who gave the order, or even just a nearby bystander. What is clear is that it would not end the Butcher, and would kill Troopers Daniels, O'Neil and Smith to no purpose. I will not authorize a missile strike."

"My apologies," Enfield says. "I was not aware."

"That aside, do we want to allow the Butcher into the Birdcage?" Jameson asks. "A homicidally insane Trump that grows stronger with each parahuman it subsumes? Do we really want to present it with a... a buffet of the most dangerous parahumans on the continent?"

"We put the Faerie Queen in there," Costa-Brown says, "and she keeps the full power of every cape she eats. The homicidally insane Trump ship sailed a long time ago, Jameson. The Birdcage still stands."

"A fair point, ma'am. Objection withdrawn."

"Are we just going to ignore the legal issues involved in sending someone to the Birdcage without a trial?" Director Schumer asks.

"Yes," several people respond simultaneously. Including Costa-Brown. "The Faerie Queen was not tried either," Costa-Brown adds. "These are extraordinary circumstances, gentlemen. Get those roads cleared, and pray that they make it before their passenger submits to the will of the Butcher."

---

You did not lie. In the context of bullets, 'depleted uranium' is simply the closest translation of 'orichalcum' that a random trooper would understand. Although, perhaps you gave him too much of a hint, you reflect as you ride the elevator down into the Birdcage proper. Not the four words, but what you said afterwards, before he turned the microphones back on.

You may of course choose to betray my trust. Without fear of retribution, if you think the Birdcage will stand forever inviolate. Would I recommend this course of action? No.

If he chooses to pass that on to his bosses, it might ruin the surprise.

Oh well. You don't mind all that much. The PRT seriously exceeded your expectations when it came to transporting you to the Birdcage without fuss, you're okay with throwing them a bone. That new Director really was an excellent choice.

You shudder as the elevator passes through another spatial distortion field. Dragon helpfully warned you not to try to damage the elevator, because it would be traveling through a vacuum with an air supply carefully calculated to last exactly long enough for it to reach its destination. She needn't have bothered, because sorcerer's sight has shown you enough space-warping tinkertech on the way down that you're not entirely sure what continent you're on right now. You'd rather not find out how many cubic miles you'd end up scattered across if you damaged that.

---

The elevator stops, the doors open, and you step out. You find yourself in a large open space, a lobby of sorts. Dozens of parahumans are present, standing in a rough semicircle facing the elevator. Surrounding you, but keeping their distance. They are split into several distinct groups, some of which seem almost as nervous about each other as they are about the new arrival. You're given to understand that each group represents a single cellblock of villains, which is how the power structures have shaken out in this lawless place.

They know who you are - that is, they know that you're the Butcher - and are understandably wary. The Butcher could easily carve out a kingdom of its own here. The question is, who will fall to make room? How will it affect the balance of power?

Some groups already have forcefields put up between you and them, and one has several tinkertech turrets deployed. The turrets turn to track you as you walk forward.

Out of all the people present, you recognize exactly two - for obvious reasons your parahuman studies have been focused on active capes, and it's not as if they get to keep their costumes after being sent in here.

One of the people you recognize is Lung, whose costume consists of stripping to the waist and showing off his dragon tattoos. Hey buddy, long time no see, sorry about putting you in here, these are all things you don't say to him.

Instead you stop in front of the other recognizable person, and kneel before her. The only one standing alone, without an entourage. A small girl, in a dress of black ribbons that flutter in an impossible wind.

"Faerie Queen," you say. "I have travelled far in search of your wisdom, and humbly request the hospitality of your court."

When she speaks, it is as if a choir of people recite her words. "Rise and be welcome, Quill of Heaven. The ancient compacts shall be honored."

===

The eclipse caste is the caste of diplomats - which is why they're sometimes known as 'the Quills of Heaven'. Treaties signed during the First Age bind the lords of the Fae to always offer guest rights to them and their delegations, if they come in peace.

But how the hell does regular parahuman Glaistig Uaine know this?

Daniel Snuts · Sep 13, 2022

Glaistig Uaine, also known as the Faerie Queen. Where most people have one cape name and one civilian name, she just has two cape names. Not that she doesn't deserve it. In one way she's your opposite: You're sixteen, wearing a form in its mid-twenties, while she is at least thirty - forty? - but doesn't look a day above thirteen. In another way, you're the same: She is a collector of powers as well. But where you carefully study other parahumans for days and weeks on end, she rips out their souls - or faeries, as she calls them - and binds them to serve her.

You have no idea whether her death touch would work on mortals as well, but it's not like she'd need it. Not when she can use the powers of any three of her enslaved 'faeries' at a time, like a smarter but less wholesome Eidolon (no, you still haven't forgiven Eidolon for the shit he tried to pull against Behemoth). Faeries like Gray Boy, whose time-based powers made him completely immune to all forms of harm (except, clearly, having his soul ripped out). Or Megaton, whose blasts could level cities.

She can also salvage the faeries of recently dead parahumans she did not kill - they apparently hang around nearby for a while as the body cools, which has all kinds of interesting theological implications. You're more focused on the fact that she must have some sort of sorcerer's sight-analog to be able to spot them, though. And you of course have the touch of death as well, courtesy of Flechette. You really are alike.

You wonder what she sees when she looks at you.

The Faerie Queen has chosen to welcome you to her domain by having a tea party. It's exactly what it sounds like. You're sitting across from her at a small circular table, with a frilly, lace-edged little tablecloth embroidered with pink roses, and the tea isn't real.

That is to say, instead of a teapot there's a foot-high ghost/faerie standing in the center of the table. A deformed, hunched-over humanoid of a thing, without eyes or nose, only a fanged grin splitting its face from ear to non-existent ear. Its clawed, stigmata'd hands drip a red liquid into the cups on command.

It's the best tea you've ever had, served at the perfect temperature.

Instead of dolls and teddy bears taking up the seats to either side of you, it's a pair of parahumans. One is a man twice your weight, none of it fat, with knife scars and acid burns covering most of his face. The other is a woman, hairless to the point where she has plucked her eyebrows and replaced them with dozens of densely packed metal studs. Her nose, lips and ears are similarly bedecked, and small sparks of lighting occasionally shoot between the piercings.

It must surely be an honor for a vassal to be invited to take tea with the Faerie Queen, yet both of them are absolutely sweating bullets, stuck-out pinkies trembling as they sip their tea.

"We hope everything is to your liking, Quill of Heaven," the voices of the Faerie Queen speak.

"The tea is excellent, thank you," you respond politely and truthfully. "It's a lovely party. However if we are to discuss more weighty matters, I'd prefer to do so without the props." You glance meaningfully at scar-guy and piercing-lady.

With a "tch" sound and a snap of her fingers, the Faerie Queen dismisses her subjects. They scramble to their feet and back out of the room while constantly bowing to her (and shooting you grateful glances).

"Speak, then," the Faerie Queen commands.

"I would not seek you out you without a fitting tribute, of course." You purse your lips and consider the cacophony of voices inside you. "Number five, I think." Five has been trying to make you peel your own skin off and eat it for the entire trip over. Not through anything so crude as taking control of your limbs, but by wanting it badly enough that the gestalt entity that you now are started craving it too. Poor Trooper Daniels had to stab you so many times to keep your willpower up.

Compared to that, the constant verbal encouragement barely registered. With fourteen voices simultaneously shouting in your head, it's relatively easy to tune out any one. You push Five out towards the forefront of your soul, and reach your hand out across the table.

-run the knife along the fat, slurp it- wait, what are you- no! Nonononono-

In the greatest act of trust in human history, you and the Faerie Queen touch each other. Neither of you die. But Five's voice cuts off abruptly, and your soul feels that much lighter. A quick glance into your soul shows that the golden matrix of his copied power - the terrifying lust infliction - remains. You nod to yourself. Exactly according to plan.

"Hm," the Faerie Queen muses, her eyes unfocused as she too contemplates something within herself. "A rambunctious one, to be sure. We are pleased with this tribute."

"All I ask in return, oh Queen, is that I may bask in your presence for a time."

The look she gives you tells you that she knows full well that you've been studying her with sorcerer's sight since the moment you stepped out of the elevator, and why. But after a moment, she smiles.

"We suppose imitation is the greatest form of flattery," she says as wryly as an ethereal choir can. "As a fellow collector of faeries you have been gracious in sharing... and so We shall be gracious in turn, and pretend that accepting your tribute was not in itself a favor."

You incline your head in gratitude. The Faerie Queen holds out her cup for more tea. "Tomorrow you will return and take tea with Us again, and bring another tribute," she declares. "We look forward to seeing how the Quill of Heaven shall write of Our prowess."

You stretch the tea party out as long as you can after that, sipping slowly and making small talk. You do after all only have 13 more faeries to bribe her with, gotta make each one count. But when she indicates that the festivities are over by unsummoning the grinning tea-ghost, you immediately stand up and bow.

"The Songbird is putting on a performance tonight," she says instead of dismissing you. "We have, of course, been extended an invitation, but We understand that no new material will be presented at this time. You may go in Our stead."

You graciously accept first, and try to figure out what the hell she is talking about second. Sanctuary or not, mutually beneficial arrangement or not, one does not snub the Fairy Queen.

"If you are to venture out among the common people, you must first gird yourself appropriately," she announces. "Come."

You follow her to an unoccupied cell haphazardly piled with various forms of loot: Junked electronics (hard currency, in a prison full of Tinkers), candy and cigarettes (hard currency in any prison), and numerous weapons from laser guns to sharpened spoons.

(You're weirdly tempted to ask her if you can turn into a dragon and sleep atop her hoard - at least once!)

"Tribute that has been offered up to Us," she says offhandedly, gesturing for you to help yourself.

You are already armed, of course, but letting either of your weapons show up on Dragon's cameras would be a poor idea. What to pick, though? A firearm might be seen as uncouth at a social event, never mind that (unlike the non-Birdcage cape population) most people present will have powers more dangerous than a gun. On the other end of the spectrum, picking the spoon could be interpreted as spitting on the Fairy Queen's generosity.

You elect to split the difference, and settle for the most lovingly crafted prison shiv you've ever - is that handle whittled from human bone? - the second most lovingly crafted prison shiv you've ever seen. The voices have been unusually subdued ever since Five was eaten, but you're still going to need a stabbing implement before the night is over.

---

The mysterious event, as it turns out, is a Bad Canary concert. It's funny, her fans out in the world would happily pay hundreds of dollars to see her live again. Yet in here the going price of a ticket, you overhear as people wait for her to come on stage, is nine cigarettes or fifteen grams of copper.

The crowd is fairly boisterous, and there are cheers and catcalls when Canary arrives. But there's a reason people paid so much to see her live: Why take E when you can just soak in feel-good Master effects? Everyone falls silent as the first note of her song hits them - everyone except you. You hiss through clenched teeth, throw off the effect, and reflexively stab yourself in the arm for more willpower.

A couple of the people closest to you jump in shock and draw away - though as the Butcher, and a personal guest of the Fairy Queen, you were afforded quite a bit of personal space already. You see security (a guy with tinkertech earplugs) heading your way, only to stop in his tracks and turn pale when he sees who you are. You sigh and hold up empty palms in his direction. His eyes fasten on the shiv still stuck in your forearm, but he quickly decides that he's not being paid enough to hassle the Butcher about her choice of body piercings and turns away.

You've had some issues with people fucking with your emotional state lately, ok? You didn't mean to cause a scene. You can handle this. Another quick couple of stabs to top yourself up, then you put the knife away and let the song wash over you. Relaxation, it whispers in your mind, joy and calm.

You allow yourself to relax.

This is nice, Two says.

AURGHARHGHGRHGRRRH! One says, but it is distant, muted.

You know what would be really nice? Twelve says. Murdering the helpless. That guy in front of us would never see it coming.

You're next, you tell him dreamily, nodding your head in time to the music. God, this feels so good. You haven't felt this good since you stopped sleeping. Just, letting all your worries drift away. Giving up control. Who even cares if it goes wrong and the Butcher comes out and you start killing bystanders? You're in the Birdcage, it's not as if they'd be missed.

---

Over the next week you fall into a routine of boredom and tea parties, and your need for self-harm diminishes along with the number of voices in your head.

"That works?" Director Enfield exclaims when he understands what Dragon's footage is showing. "You can do that?"

"It would seem that this Quicksilver had plans not just to imprison the Butcher, but to kill it as well," Chief Director Costa-Brown says. "I thought her a martyr. A strong-willed one, to be sure, but I expected her to succumb to the Butcher once inside Baumann. I clearly underestimated her, in more ways than one."

"So, uh..." Director Jameson hesitantly holds up a hand. "A week from now, when she's done killing the Butcher... do we let her out? Can we let her out? Without lowering the defenses to the point that we risk a general breakout, I mean?"

"She is technically guilty of murder," Director Schumer says. "In the first degree, if this was indeed all planned from the start. The Birdcage is the appropriate-"

"That's bullshit!" I exclaim before I can stop myself. "Uh, that is- my apologies, Chief Director, I did not-"

She waves my apology away. "The Butcher only lacked a kill order for the obvious technical reasons," she says. "As you well know, Director Schumer."

"I misspoke," Schumer says. "I clearly meant to say, since she was never found guilty in a court of law, it is imperative that she be granted her freedom post-haste."

"I will reach out to Dragon, and see if such a thing is possible," Costa-Brown says. "This is assuming, of course, that the Faerie Queen is willing to part with her new toy in the first place. And that Dragon is feeling cooperative."

I wince at that. My predecessor didn't exactly cover himself in glory, diplomacy-wise.

You'd think the Birdcage would be a buffet of powers to study... but although it is the repository of all the worst psychos in North America, the ones that were too crazy have long since been culled by their peers. Even in here, people become highly uncomfortable if they notice the Butcher staring at them for too long. They tend to flee, in fact, with varying degrees of alacrity and deniability.

Since your official status in the cell block is 'guest' rather than 'lieutenant', you don't have the authority to make them stick around. And you don't want to abuse the Faerie Queen's hospitality by forcing yourself on- uh, phrasing. By chasing down and bullying her subjects. But bullying the subjects of some other warlord while under her protection and igniting an international incident on her behalf would be an even worse faux pas.

You could just ask her to grant you the authority... but she might take offense that the 'quill of heaven would write other annals before hers', or something. In the end you choose to be content with 'only' gaining fifteen powers out of this - one of them the greatest in the world, and the other fourteen with no studying time whatsoever. You're not complaining.

Instead you spend most of your free time lifting weights. You don't even know if it does anything for you beneath all the Brute powers you recently inherited, but Hollywood tells you it's one of the two great pastimes of prison inmates, and even if you had any desire to sample the other, you lack the equipment.

---

"Thank you Grail, that will be all," Glaistig Uaine says. Grail being the name of the tea-ghost, this indicates that the tea party is over. Ever since you expressed a desire for minion-free tea parties that first time, she has instead taken to summoning extra faeries in their place, addressing them by name and engaging them in one-sided conversation as they mime sipping tea. You have no idea how much of this is her being completely cuckoo, how much is childish whimsy, and how much is her messing with you.

I dismiss Lantern and Edge as well as she rises. I do prefer trembling lackeys over fairies for these affairs, but for her to study my power was the bargain we struck, and so I shall use it to its fullest each time we meet.

Oh yes, there was that petition from the lesser nobility, was there not?

"The Marquis has expressed a desire to meet with you," she says as you rise from the table. You spend several seconds trying to translates this title from cuckoo-speak before it strikes you that Marquis is the actual cape name of a villain from Brockton Bay. Got arrested, what, ten-ish years ago? Something like that. You were alive when it happened, but too young to really understand such things.

He's obviously interested in hearing how the old hometown is doing, and you see no reason not to indulge him. It beats lifting weights, and you admire his balls. The news will obviously have circulated by now that the Butcher is less murderously insane than expected, but it still takes bigger balls than any you've observed so far to invite her over.

---

Marquis wears armor of bone - his own, you recall, grown and shaped through his power before being broken off from his skeleton. He nods to acknowledge your arrival, but does not rise from where he sits. The table in front of him is laden with refreshments - though where the Queen offers tea and cookies, the Marquis offers soda and pretzels, as well as a jug of something you can only assume to be prison wine. Neither the armor nor the food is what catches your attention, though. No, that would be Lung, standing at his side. Standing, while Marquis sits. The henchman position.

You admit you're impressed. He made Lung into a minion? They clearly don't make villains like they used to. Or you suppose they do, when you think about it. This is where Quicksilver would curtsey, but you're the Butcher now. The Butcher does whatever the hell she wants... and what you want to do is bow. Marquis may not appreciate the full subtext, but you offer him the shallow but respectful bow of an equal and peer, as the person who made Shatterbird into your minion.

"Please have a seat, and help yourself," Marquis says, gesturing towards the chair opposite him.

You sit, and help yourself to a pretzel. "Thank you. I assume you want news of home?"

"In a sense. We do get television down here, and the Bay is hardly the least newsworthy place these days. But there are things the news doesn't cover."

You gesture for him to continue, your mouth too full of pretzel to interject otherwise. They're surprisingly good!

"I imagine some like you - that is to say, someone like your latest host - would follow the cape scene more closely than most. Perhaps you've even met those others would consider reclusive and mysterious?" There's a quality of barely-restrained eagerness about his voice.

"Is this about Esper?" you ask. "I'll let you in on a secret: Esper is a fucking idiot."

"Mostly I wanted to ask you about my daughter," he says softly.

"Aha!" you exclaim, snapping your fingers. That just cleared up a mystery so old you'd completely forgotten about it. "I knew the New Wave powerset could never have produced a healer!"

He can't quite hide his surprise at your deduction - he clearly expected this conversation to go long and solemn. But he rallies quickly. "Indeed, it is her. They say no one emerges from the Grove alive, but... you appear to know more than most. Is there anything you can tell me?"

You remain silent long enough to extract his soul price, just on principle. Something you didn't dare to do with the Faerie Queen, because there's a non-zero chance she'd notice.

Marquis wants his daughter to be happy.

Well, you know how those prices tend to work out, don't you? At least he cares. You'd call him a good man, but to be fair you don't know if it changed recently. Perhaps it used to be the death of New Wave, as Lisa theorized, before consecutive Endbringers granted most of it.

"I spoke to her," you admit.

"How... how is she? Is she doing well?"

"As well as can be expected," you say.

Marquis briefly closes his eyes, pain evident on his face, before lowering his gaze to stare at his hands. "I had hoped... A foolish hope, I suppose."

"Oh, she's doing well insofar as one of the greatest capes of a generation has come into her power, and established a demesne where the greatest of heroes fear to tread. Tell me, oh Marquis, does that make one happy?"

"It helps," Lung says, even as Marquis shakes his head.

"Some people need more help than others," you tell him.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 14, 2022

"We wonder, what you tribute shall you present Us with now?" Glaistig Uaine says conversationally. In addition to the ever-grinning tea provider, today's guests are an orange-clad faerie who has a burning, double-bladed axe for a head, and one whose entire torso is a heart, pumping grayish-pink fluid through translucent artery-limbs.

That's the rub, isn't it? You only had fourteen faeries to spare, but her power is (unsurprisingly) one of the tricky ones. You'll need another week at least, perhaps two - the Faerie Queen does tend to savor her tea all afternoon, but enjoys her privacy otherwise. And while you didn't have a contract as such, the terms of the deal were quite clear.

"There is a wonder I could offer you, unique in all the world. I must admit I am loath to give it up, but perhaps if a permanent invitation was offered..?"

She frowns. "Permanence is no small thing, for beings such as us. If We agree, will We find you still availing yourself of Our hospitality three millennia hence?"

"I would not stay longer than a year and a day." You won't stay for a month and a day, but some instinct prompts you to bargain for 366 days exactly. Oh, you'd love nothing more than to stay all year and extract a power from each of her faeries in turn... but the Endbringers won't sit around and wait for that.

"We would find that acceptable."

"Would you shield us from the sight of the Dragon, fair queen? I fear to bring forth treasure beneath its avaricious eyes."

"Treasure? You believe that a mere trinket could equal the value of not one, but of several hundred faeries? Be careful how you answer, Quill of Heaven."

"Certainly, you could argue that a hundred faeries are a hundred times more valuable than a single faerie. But is a throng not faceless by its very nature? Could you honestly say you love each of your charges equally and for their own sake, without regard given to their usefulness?"

She is quiet for several seconds, pursing her lips as if tasting your words. "We have chosen to find your impertinence refreshing. We hope this wonder of yours will not disappoint." The axe-head faerie is replaced by a pale woman whose cape and fingers are fluttering moth wings, and the world around you fades into featureless gray. "There are no eyes upon us."

A weapon appears from nowhere (actually, from Elsewhere) and falls into your hand. You spin it around on your palm and offer it to her, hilt first.

She examines the golden dagger. "A poisoned gift, like the one you gave the Dragon? Is that why you would shield yourself from its gaze?"

So she knows everyone you are, no use pretending you took the knife from Taylor's body. "A gift given in friendship, later betrayed. Do you name it poison, that the blade refuses to turn on its smith?"

"Well spoken. Since it is offered in friendship, We shall accept it in the same spirit, and may it turn in Our hand as well should we betray the sentiment." She takes the knife from you. "Although," she adds, "We would be quite displeased to find Our trinket no longer unique. We are well aware that you could gather the resources to produce more, should you wish it so."

"All the resources," you agree, "except time, the most precious one of all."

A faint frown, barely visible, crosses her face as she tries to work out how you caused it to appear from nothing. But your brand of tinkertech interfaces directly with an attuned soul. You're not sure how much of this her equivalent of sorcerer's sight lets her understand, because after a moment she decides to brute-force the problem with an extra-dimensional storage faerie, rather than attempt to usurp the attunement itself.

---

From then on you spend all your tea parties beneath the gray shroud, so that you may converse freely about your non-Quicksilver exploits, and so that you may amuse her by letting her study your powers in turn.

You benefit as well, because during one of your demonstrations you accidentally figure out how to activate Siberian's power: One of your Butcher powers, that you previously though did nothing except make you punch better, also incidentally changes the nature of your essence(?) into something that allows you the become one with the void(?).

What you're saying is that a bunch of soul-magic bullshit that you don't fully understand happened, a flash of un-light darkened the room as you struck the conjured training dummy, and your hand passed right through it without resistance. Further testing reveals that A) it does indeed make you invulnerable as well, B) rather than giving you stripes it makes your body so perfectly black you can't even make out its contours, appearing as a silhouette in the air, and C) this transformation respects clothing, so you don't even end up naked afterwards!

How ironic for Siberian's power.

Even better, the un-light it produces is exactly like that of Evil Taylor's pact-sealing power, and you don't mean that it rots and corrodes your surroundings. Okay, it does that too, but the point is that since it's has the same effect on your essence(?) as pact-sealing, you can now trigger Lung's power without shaking hands with anyone!

This whole trip was already worth it, and you don't even have the Faerie Queen's power yet.

---

You have the Faerie Queen's power. A version of it, anyway. You just need to figure out what went wrong (because something usually goes wrong) and what dumb limitations you're stuck with this time. Still, you first take a moment to admire the beauty of it, an intricate filigree of gold in the constellation of your soul. Think only of the beauty, and not all the grief it's going to cause you momentarily.

Your attention returns to the real world to find the Faire Queen smiling at you sardonically. "Are Our victuals so unsatisfying to you, that you must seek headier fare?" she asks.

"You know what's wrong with it," you say, resigned.

"We watched it form over these past weeks, did we not?" She dismisses the privacy field and calls for a minion. "Bring us Overconfidante," she tells them.

A while later the minion returns, trailing a healthy distance behind a fairly nondescript Caucasian man - presumably Overconfidante. The minion stays behind in the doorway, and the man approaches. The Faerie Queen raises the grey barrier around the three of you the moment he gets close.

"Esper is probably a Simurgh bomb," you say. "I know this because I'm Esper." Wait, what?

"My real name is Ciara O'Rourke," Glaistig Uaine responds.

"I killed Shadow Stalker. It was an accident, but the kidnapping, torture and rape was on purpose?" you ask, your brow furrowing.

A faerie appears, pale blue and with a small cloud hovering above it, snowing on its head and shoulders. It leans forward, and the cloud pivots along with it to touch Glaistig's - Ciara's - brow. "Vexing, is it not?" she says. "His mere presence makes people reveal their secrets."

"Jews control the media," you agree before the cloud touches you as well, and the compulsion fades. You shrug at her raised eyebrow. "One does not spend months in Empire 88 without picking up on certain facts that, while not strictly speaking secret, must be held as such in polite company."

"Out of all Our subjects, this one's passing will be mourned the least." At her words, Overconfidante falls to his knees and starts begging for his life. Sensible. It won't work, but it wastes less energy than trying to run. "Now, what do your instincts tell you to do?"

You consider the crying mess in front of you, trying to feel something. "Nothing..?"

"Of course, how silly of Us," the Faerie Queen says, and kills him. Not with her death touch, but by shooting a laser beam through his forehead. She is saving his faerie for you, after all. "And now?"

You stare at his corpse, and- oh god. Oh fuck. Oh no. Why!? What is wrong with you?

"They tell me to feast on his raw flesh," you say. With some difficulty, because you're already gagging.

"Just so," the Faerie Queen says. And then she says nothing more. Waiting.

You already know you're going to do it. It's what you came here for, after all. You screw your eyes shut, and with a burst of un-light give yourself a dragon's teeth. Then you kneel down by the body, and... feast?

No. It's not feasting, what you do. You force yourself to rip and tear, but it is no feast. It's horrible. There is no part of it that is not horrible. The metallic taste. The rubbery texture. The feeling of tearing flesh, the feeling of strands getting stuck in your teeth. Every moment is torture, that no one is inflicting on you but yourself. Every swallow is a battle not to throw up, that you fight over and over again. Because the alternative is not getting his power.

You finally know the answer to the question you asked so long ago: There is nothing you will not do for power. You don't even particularly want this one. You're doing this to prove to yourself that you can, so that you can do it again in the future. Oh yes, you'll do this again and again, you have no illusions about that. You have no idea how many people you will murder and eat because you won't take the time to study them, except that it is not zero.

This is exactly what you wanted. You did not approach the Faerie Queen in order to not murder people for their powers, to not rip away their very souls. And indeed, with every bite you feel something more than meat entering your being. You should hate yourself for that. You don't. What you really hate yourself for, is that you're not enough of a monster. The Faerie Queen kills with a touch, but not you. No, some subconscious part of you still held that stealing a soul was a monstrous act, and twisted the expression of her power to reflect that. You hate that the barest shreds of a conscience has made murder not easy.

Are you happy now? Now that you've forced yourself to so viscerally experience the horror of your actions? Because you must have known that it would not stop you. It never has. It never will.

Finally, finally you feel his power slotting into place, enough of his soul consumed to form a facsimile within yours. You turn your head away from your feast and puke. You puke and puke and puke, and it's even worse coming up than it was going down.

"Will you be leaving Our court, now that your desires are fulfilled?" the Faerie Queen asks, entirely unperturbed by your actions.

"Y-yeah," you say, standing up and wiping at your mouth. When you turn towards her she's holding out, of all things, a packet of prison-brand dental floss. You accept it. You floss the corpse-meat from your dragon fangs. With disgust, sure, but without horror. That part is done, over with. You've accepted that this is something you'll be doing from now on. That this is who you are. Will you puke the next time too? Probably. It matters not. It won't stop you.

You never thought you'd miss Five and the cravings he induced.

Your fellow monster cleans up the rest of the evidence while you floss.

"I'm going to need food and water," you say. "Five days' worth."

---

A power to rival that of my Lord, but quiescent? Truly, even the tiny glimpse of this 'Silver Desert' as she left is enough to repay any favors given. Never let it be said that she did not show me a wonder unique in all the world, regardless of what golden trinkets she offered.

Perhaps I shall explore it further, anon.

"It appears that the point is moot," the Chief Director says. "The Faerie Queen killed Quicksilver and disposed of her body."

I feel a stab of regret, if not grief - I did not know her except by her actions. "She did a great service to the world," I say, because it needs to be said. Even if the public will never know.

"What set her off this time?" Jameson asks.

"Presumably some secret Overconfidante made Quicksilver reveal," the Chief Director says. "By the time the cameras came back online, they were both gone."

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: Void Avatar Prana
Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound
Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit
Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies
Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow
Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance
Glaistig Uaine: Soul-Consuming Transcendence

Technically a status addendum:

Overconfidante: Analytical Modeling Intuition

But this charm will never be used. This is not the second plot-relevant OC, because it could have been anyone. That's the point.

Three millennia is roughly how long Glaistig Uaine will live, because that's how long it will take for Scion's batteries to run down - and roughly how long Taylor will live, because it also happens to be the life expectancy of a solar exalt.

Barring any unfortunate events, of course.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 15, 2022

As you emerge from the sands, you glance up. You cannot see the sky. It appears New Dawn has followed your instructions, and constructed a giant tent roof over the Silver Desert, high enough that it does not crumble into sand. Not that any rain ever hits the desert regardless of the mortal weather outside, but you're less sanguine about satellite imagery. Yes, you're wearing a generic face unrelated to any of your known identities, but if certain people (robots) noticed people walking out of the desert every so often they might start looking for patterns.

Speaking of New Dawn, your arrival has not gone unnoticed, and the nearest edge of the desert is quickly filling up with kneeling worshippers.

"Great Esper foretold thy arrival, honored apostle," the guy in front says. "New Dawn is at your service." He also offers you a robe, because you're currently naked. Not much use wearing a false face if your clothes still have 'Baumann Parahuman Containment Center' printed on them, after all.

You nod, and gesture for him to walk with you as you make your way through the throng. Your awareness sweeps out to cover the entire city - another power of the Butcher, but where she only saw the blood inside people's bodies, you see... everything. In return, it only lets you see into places you personally own - like Brockton Bay.

The irony does not escape you: The moment you decided to stop playing at being royalty, you gained the greatest city lord power in the entire world.

At a glance, nothing appears to be on fire, no capes are present that recognizably shouldn't be... Then again, you can only see the present.

"What crises have occurred in Esper's absence?" you ask your worshipper.

"None, honored apostle."

"None?" you say incredulously. This is Brockton Bay. You were away for almost a month!

"Well, Cryolord came perilously close to the desert once, but we managed to lure him away with food."

Your city-vision hones in on Cryolord for a moment. Still wandering, freezing everything around him as he walks. He's harmless, because in even more defiance of physics than is usual for powers, all living beings frozen by his power thaw out harmlessly after a couple of hours. And, it was discovered, all radioactive matter similarly frozen is transmuted into stable isotopes.

Like many powerful capes he's not quite all there mentally, but after Behemoth's death he decided that the most good he could do in the world would be to wander aimlessly around Brockton Bay with his power on full blast, like a reverse Ash Beast. People generally view him with some mixture of fondness and exasperation, because no one likes radiation, but no one particularly enjoys what having entire neighborhoods randomly frozen does to their schedules either.

You did however give New Dawn instructions to keep him away from the Silver Desert at all costs, because no none wants to find out whether it would view being frozen with fondness or exasperation.

You dismiss the worshipper and start walking across the city. You'll debrief BITN next, because you still can't believe that nothing catastrophic-

A portal appears before you without warning. On the other side, a sterile white room, and a woman in a suit. Mediterranean complexion. Powers. Fedora. You take off flying in the opposite direction before she can even open her mouth.

"Esper-" she begins, before the portal closes and another opens up in the air next to you. "-your services-" another portal, further ahead "-are needed."

Crap. The last portal is just far enough ahead that you have time to slow down and land inside, so you do. It closes behind you.

"Simurgh or Leviathan?" you ask.

"Neither," she says.

Double crap. There never was any reason to think that there were only three Endbringers, was there? No more had shown up for almost a decade... but then they never needed reinforcements before.

"We are still gathering personnel, you have time to change," the woman says. "Door to Esper's costume." A smaller portal opens up, showing the inside of a familiar closet. She politely turns her back to you.

You throw off the robe and reach into the portal, already starting to shift your form into that of Esper. Considering how much she already appears to know about you, you don't know why you bother to dress up. A morale boost for whoever sees you on the field, you guess.

"Are you the one who defeated Lung?" you ask as you step into the leotard. It would be embarrassing if you fled in terror from some other woman in a fedora.

"A strange question for you to be asking, don't you think?"

Ah. That handily answers the question you didn't ask, namely 'Do you know everything about me?' The answer is 'yes'.

"But no," she continues, "it would be more accurate to say that I created Lung, though not on purpose."

Ah, you're talking to Lung's trigger event. Of course he'd want a rematch, now that he has powers. But-

"This does not make you reassess the threat I pose," she notes without turning around. "Smart."

Of course not. Even if she didn't have powers at all, between the portal network and the way her organization is casually taking over the international Endbringer response...

"What's your opinion on Number Man?" you try. "Friend or foe?"

"Oh, Kurt is quite a dear friend." And then she proceeds to once a gain answer the question you didn't ask: "Our organization has, as you would put it, quite the monopoly on world domination plots. The viable ones, at any rate."

You finish pulling on your gloves, and reach into the portal for your baton. "Ready."

Another portal opens, and you both step forth into an auditorium, made up in the same all-white color scheme as the room you just left. Looking around you spot Alexandria, Legend, dozens of capes you don't recognize. The speaker's podium is occupied by a black woman in a lab coat - the only non-parahuman in the room - who nods at you as you appear. "Contessa, Esper," she greets you. "We may now begin."

She addresses the crowd in general. "We have gathered you here to face a new threat to-"

"Who the hell is 'we'?" someone in the crowd shouts. "Who the hell are you?"

"'We' are Cauldron. You may not have heard of us, but for as long as parahumans have existed we have worked in the shadows to ensure the survival of humanity at all costs."

That's not quite how fedora girl - Contessa - introduced their organization. But you suppose that if humanity goes extinct, world domination becomes fairly pointless.

"As for me, you may call me Doctor Mother."

You - barely - manage to keep your face impassive. Okay then. Sure. Nothing wrong with that. If no one else is going to speak up, you too are going to politely pretend not to notice the achievement gap in cape names, and so not piss off the figurehead of the world domination conspiracy.

Your attention is fixed on the video being projected behind her, however. Where the Simurgh brings to mind a twisted angel, the fourth Endbringer is a fat buddha, all in black. A perfectly spherical 'belly', with hips and shoulders almost seeming to be separate pieces. Stubby limbs, adorned with curly claws and spikes trimmed with silver. The face of a demon and the whiskers of a dragon. It floats forward like gravity was a mere suggestion, and three tall, thin cylindrical forcefields circle around it leaving destruction in their wake.

"A fourth Endbringer has appeared - provisionally, we're calling it 'Khonsu.'"

The video (live feed?) shows a flying cape trying to approach, whereupon the forcefields suddenly speed up to catch him. Naught but bones and rags are left in their wake.

"Those are fields of accelerated time," the black woman says. "People caught within them die practically instantly, and buildings crumble at speeds visible to the naked eye. We estimate that the dilation factor is on the order of one year per second."

She fast-forwards the video, showing Eidolon approaching, and attacking with wavy beams of prismatic light. The reds and greens are lost as they travel through the time fields, but yellow-purple beams still bombard the Endbringer. You have no idea what is going on there energy-wise, except Cape Bullshit. It's definitely Cape Bullshit.

The beams cause the superficial wounds typical of Endbringer fights... right up until the monster dismisses its time fields, only to bring them up again covering itself. To outside observers, the wounds regenerate in an instant. Not that all Endbringer injuries aren't mere theater anyway - possibly as a set-up for precisely this moment, and the hit to morale it brings.

"As you all know, Endbringers can fully recover from all injuries in a matter of months," the woman says, blissfully unaware of how much worse than that the situation is. "Or in this case, 0.2 seconds."

Then it vanishes.

"It can also teleport across the entire world, once it accomplishes its objective. So far it has hit Sapporo in Japan, Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan (where this footage was taken), and Puerto San Julian in Argentina." She pauses, then brings one hand to her ear. "We have just received confirmation that its latest target is Khartoum, Sudan."

"Why those places?" someone asks.

"At least it's not Brockton Bay again," someone else says.

"Ahem," Doctor Seriously-You're-Not-Going-To-Call-Her-That says. The view behind her changes to a world map. A yellow line appears, starting in northern Japan, curving down across the pacific to slice the very tip off of South America, then curving up again to neatly bisect Africa and Arabia and going across Asia to rejoin itself in Japan. Then the flat map shifts into a globe, showing that the line does not curve at all, but is in fact a perfect circle.

"So far the targets would all lie on the equator - if Brockton Bay was the North Pole."

Ah. That explains why you did not come back to a crisis: The Endbringers are taunting you.

"We do not believe it will stop until and unless it is beaten," she continues.

"Fuck," someone in the audience says, which opens the floodgates.

"How do we even deal with something like this?"

"Where is Scion?"

"Scion is fast, but he can't teleport."

"Yeah, and he'd get distracted helping people along the way."

"Fuck."

"Esper," the black woman says loudly enough to cut through the hubbub. "If we can prevent it from teleporting, can you strike it down as you did Behemoth?"

Hopeful eyes turn towards you, all expecting the same answer.

"No," you say. There are gasps, and more f-bombs. "In sub-lethal doses, the effects of the Behemoth-Felling Strike fade within a day. All this 'Khonsu' has to do is accelerate itself for a moment between each blow, and it will accomplish nothing at all." You slump as if in defeat. "They deployed a time manipulator specifically to counter me."

You let that that settle in for a moment. Cauldron clearly wanted to let the despair build up a bit before offering hope, so why not bolster their efforts?

"That's why I developed multiple ways to kill an Endbringer," you announce with a defiant toss of your hair. You stand up and look the Doctor straight in the eye. "Prevent it from teleporting, and I will strike it down in a manner entirely unlike how I killed Behemoth."

The room is split between people cheering, and people grumbling at your theatrics.

"You can just develop ways to kill an Endbringer?" the Tinker on your right mutters.

"My sponsors already have developing new flavors of gum covered," you whisper back, playing into Esper's dumb gimmick. "Just keeping up my end of the bargain." By the look on his face, he deeply resents the amused snort you just forced out of him.

"I require some assistance to prepare," you announce more loudly.

The Doctor nods. "Contessa will provide whatever you need."

No sooner has she finished speaking than Contessa is beside you, ushering you into a portal back to the room you got dressed in. Or possibly a completely different room, it's not as if it has any distinguishing features beyond the blank white walls.

"No one from Brockton Bay can join the fight," you tell her.

"Acceptable."

"I also need a cape who doesn't need to eat or drink," you continue. "Preferably with a weak or boring primary power, not a Case 53, signed up for Endbringer fights, English-speaking. In that order."

Contessa nods and portals out. You take the opportunity to shift your form in preparation for what comes next. In less than a minute she's back, along with a lanky man with messy black hair and bags under his eyes. He looks awed but not shocked, so presumably she told him where he was going rather than simply abducting him.

"Esper," he says, inclining his head in greeting. "It's an honor to meet you."

"Yes, yes, no, yes," Contessa says. It takes you a moment to parse that, but you manage.

"You're not signed up for Endbringer fights?" you ask the man.

He looks a bit sheepish as he shakes his head. "I don't- my power, it's not very good. I wouldn't be any help." You just nod in response. Good on him for recognizing that. It puts him ahead of quite a lot of capes you've met in Endbringer fights, brains-wise.

"But if you could give your life to ensure the death of an Endbringer, would you?"

"I, uh- I mean, I'd hope I-" He cuts off his stumbling words, squares his shoulders and raises his chin. "Yes. I would."

"Good," you say, before turning to Contessa. "Kill him."

A shot rings out, deafeningly loud in the enclosed space. You pull down your mask, revealing a mouth full of dragon teeth.

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: Void Avatar Prana
Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound
Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit
Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies
Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow
Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance
Glaistig Uaine: Soul-Consuming Transcendence
Plot-relevant OC #2: Corpse Needs No Food

It's not just that Taylor is protecting her citizens by preventing them from going, she also instinctively understands that her Void Avatar Prana suffers from the Abyssal Compassion Flaw of Invulnerability: It stops working if anyone she gives a shit about is around.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 16, 2022

Once you're done, Contessa portals you into a vast hall (same sterile white non-decor as always) filled with capes gathered into several distinct groups.

"Khonsu just appeared in Qiqihar, China," she says.

"I will not enter the CUI," you counter. She just nods in response. If they know everything about you, they know your reasons. Of course they understand that this ultimatum is entirely reasonable, when divided by your importance to the cause.

"You will be in the third group to arrive." She points towards to closest group of capes, then portals out without further comment.

You had at first been confused by the amount of capes present, but that statement makes it clear: They're decoys. Two groups to grab its attention and soak the initial hits, with the true attack hidden within the third.

You wonder if you should change clothes and/or faces to help facilitate this. But no, you recall being told that Endbringer eyes are merely decorative. Whatever arcane senses they have are far more likely to resemble sorcerer's sight, against which you have no camouflage. In which case you should remain as Esper, who is at least a walking (flying), talking battle flag to raise morale.

You can see it working immediately as group three spots you approaching. You wonder whether you should pity them their role. On the one hand, they are explicitly here as cannon fodder. On the other, by acting as decoys for you they will contribute more than anyone else in the history of Endbringer fights.

You let none of this show on your face, instead accepting handshakes and high fives with good cheer, like the good little battle flag you are. There might be some slight envy radiating from groups #1, #2, #4 and #5, but none of them break ranks to join in the festivities. Except one - a man dressed as an action train conductor.

"Strider!" you call out to him. "Big fan!"

"Likewise, likewise," he assures you, a huge grin splitting his face below his giant mirrored goggles. "I don't suppose this would be a good time to ask for an autograph?"

"I don't do autographs. Can I offer you a side-hug selfie instead?"

"Deal!" He actually teleports the final distance between you, appearing with his arm already around your shoulders. "Sorry, sorry," he says as you startle (and very nearly delete him from existence, though he doesn't notice that part). He's already raising his phone as he apologizes, so you lean your head next to his and raise your fingers in a V for victory.

Click goes the camera, and with a motion that speaks of well-honed reflexes his finger immediately hits the 'share to social media' button. Though to his credit, he hesitates before confirming, glancing at you for permission.

"Caption: 'Endbringer Express,'" you suggest.

This triggers a cavalcade of further photo ops from the rest of group three.

"Ulan Bator, Mongolia," Contessa's voice comes over the loudspeakers some time later, interrupting the festivities. "Go!"

Strider is gone from your side, and you glance over at group one just in time to see them vanish. Strider is back, group two is gone, Strider is next to you again, you are on top of a skyscraper, facing the rising sun.

Were it not for the time of day, it would not be immediately apparent to you that you were not still in America. Tall buildings in the middle, with the height tapering off further out. You suppose it would be different if you were on street level, where you could fail to read the signs.

Your musings are cut short by a cry of "To the left!", and you turn to see the telltale cylindrical time fields in the distance. Without further prompting, your entire group takes to the air. There's another group ahead of you, approaching from a different angle.

The nearest time field swerves to intercept you as you approach, but you've seen this move already, and most of your group manages to change course in time. Then another one comes from the left, and you grin savagely behind your mask as you avoid it with yards to spare, though it shaves another few decoys off your group. You're past the time fields, with a straight shot at the Endbringer itself. Flight is going to be a noticeably less common power by the time this is over, but if that's all it's got-

The world goes black. There are screams around you, but they are of shock rather than pain.

"Aaah!"

"What happened?"

"I'm blind!"

"Who did that?"

"Ah, scheisse."

Looking around in the pitch darkness, sorcerer's sight reveals five other capes around you. There were a lot more a second ago.

One of them is also visible to normal sight, a faint purple glow coming from several protrusions on the his power armor. The others are moving to congregate around him, so you follow suit.

"What is going on?" you ask, bobbing gently in the air next to him. The Tinker was the last one to speak, and he sounded more resigned than surprised - he might know what's going on.

"Ve're trapped in a time field," he says.

"What?"

"No!"

"It isn't dark inside the time fields!"

"Not from ze outside," the Tinker explains. "But if one year for us is a second for ze rest of the vorld, vell... Zen ve're getting 30 million times less sunlight zan eferyone else."

He starts moving again as he speaks, flying towards the presumed edge of the time field. The rest of you follow him, though it's obviously futile: If people could just walk out of a time field, they already would have.

Indeed, the moment he touches the boundary - you can just about make it out with sorcerer's sight, up close - his armor goes dark and plummets to the ground. There are more exclamations around you.

"I'm fine!" his voice comes from below, and the purple glow comes back. "Armor crashed."

"Yes, but why?" a female voice asks as you descend to join him.

"No, like computer crash."

You perform your own experiments while the Tinker mutters to himself, trying to diagnose the issue. You can poke your baton through and retrieve it without issue, but not your hand. Only dead matter can exit the boundary, in other words, while living beings can enter but not escape. Typical Manton bullshit, and nothing you didn't figure out just from watching the footage - if dead matter couldn't pass through, Khonsu would be bulldozing cities, not eroding them.

The Tinker comes to much the same conclusion a few moments later: His armor poked through, and didn't like part of the circuitry running at 30 000 000x speed.

"Excellent test of ze emergency shock absorbers," he concludes, with somewhat strained levity. He is, after all, doomed.

"May I have honor of knowing with whomst to be sharing unmarked grave?" someone else requests. You can't make out colors, but the parahuman glow is enough to show you a tall bearded man, with a generous belly straining against a spandex costume. "To be called Zap! - or if prefer, Ivan." His pronunciation makes it very clear that the exclamation mark is part of his name.

"Cyclotron," the Tinker says. "Gustaf."

"Reverb - Emmelie." A girl who may or may not have some sort of pattern woven into her outfit. Musical notes?

"Esper." You hesitate, but it isn't as if these people will survive to tell anyone your true name. "Taylor."

"Doppelscheisse," Cyklotron says. "So much for killing more Endbringers." Reverb starts crying.

You absently pat her shoulder while Inviolate/Nicholas and Glimpse/Sara introduce themselves. Yes, she utterly failed at her job as decoy, but you don't hold it against her. That last time field came out of nowhere.

Cyclotron does something else to his armor, and part of one gauntlet shifts from glowing faint purple to shining bright white, enough to finally see properly. You may have figured out about living and dead matter yourself, but you didn't realize that your share of photons would be stretched out like that. Not that you strictly need sunlight, but there's a similar unforeseen complication with-

"How much air is in here, do you reckon?" you ask.

-the wind. With the clarity of hindsight, you realize that you should have added 'or breathe' when you ordered takeout from Contessa.

Cyclotron shrugs. "Enough zat ve'll die of zirst zirst."

"I do not need to eat or drink," you say.

"Ah. Do what you must, zen."

"Do what?" Inviolate asks.

"Esper may surfife zis," Cyclotron explains. "But she must kill us all zirst, so ve do not breaze her air." He fiddles with some latches at his neck and takes off his helmet, before handing you a glowing purple knife. Polite of him, since you left yours in the Birdcage.

"Pleasure to have served with great Esper," Zap! says, kneeling and lifting his beard aside to bare his throat.

"Tell my mom I made a difference," Reverb requests.

"No! Let me go! I don't want to die!" Glimpse screams.

"Stop struggling, it won't make a difference," those are Inviolate's last words.

Then a panicked civilian with a flashlight comes running out of the nearest building and starts jabbering at you in Mongolian, and you realize that there's a lot more than five air-breathers in here with you.

At least with the rest of them, you won't feel obligated to feast on their flesh afterwards.

In better circumstances I would crack wise about having 'a beauty on each arm'.

On my left, an attractive Caucasian brunette who introduced herself as Miranda. Despite aforementioned circumstances, she attempts to present herself as innocently seductive. The latter is more successful than the former, considering her attire: An orange prison jumpsuit, which she has tied off at the waist. Leaving her torso clad in nothing but a white sports bra, the contents of which she takes care to press against my arm as she clings to me.

On my right, a taciturn Chinese lady in a red cheongsam, who introduced herself simply as 'Ér', no second name, and would not respond to any further conversational sallies. Then again, perhaps she does not speak much English, and I do not speak Chinese.

Further ruining any romantic mood is Eidolon, standing behind me and gripping my shoulders. As I understand it, one of his powers is being used to hide us from the beast, while the other two are Trump powers. The ladies are power-boosting Trumps as well, and all three of them are enhancing each other as well as me, taking all of us higher and higher in a never-ending spiral. I am not even using my power yet, but still I feel bloated, overfilled. The world is awhirl with vectors and relationships, begging for me to reach out, but I hold fast.

"I should be out there," Eidolon mutters, audible to me only because he is all but breathing down my neck.

"Negative," comes a voice from his armband, different from the artificial announcer voice. I recognize it as that of the woman who brought me here. "Maintain position. Group three is engaging."

An unnecessary advisory, as we can see it playing out in front of us. The fliers dodge one time field, then another. And then, just as they are about to make contact, a third one springs up from nothing in their midst.

"Esper deceased," intones the announcer voice.

After going through the three-quarters of a building trapped in here with you room by room, apartment by apartment, floor by floor, you are finally certain that you are alone. You sit down cross-legged on the roof and close your eyes. You've never attempted meditation before, but you've read somewhere that it's supposed to decrease your oxygen consumption.

This seems like an excellent time to learn.

"-ride, override!" comes a different voice from the armband. "Esper is alive! I repeat, Esper is alive!"

At first I think she escaped the time field, but no. She is sitting atop a building inside it, not moving, but not dying and rotting away either.

"All units, attack!" the armband orders. "Force it to recall the time fields to heal itself!"

Eidolon shifts, preparing to leave.

You understand now that Newter did not give you a power. It was inside you all along. You can tell, because you've discovered another one just like it - but greater. You must have seen it before, you're pretty sure, all those times you've gazed upon your soul and its constellation of powers. But somehow the knowledge slipped from your grasp every time, until now. You don't know how long it's been - no light, and only the faintest stirrings of hunger and thirst, unchanging - but you are finally ready to comprehend its majesty. And it is majestic, able to channel an almost inconceivable amount of power, should you but find a mate for it.

Are there even greater wonders hidden within you?

"Not you, Eidolon," the recruiter's voice adds. "Maintain position."

If the second power within you was majestic, the third is breathtaking. No, do not think about a lack of breath. You are calm, you are one with the universe. Meditation lowers oxygen consumption. Calm, one with the universe.

Alexandria strikes, sending Khonsu flying backwards through a forest of Narwhal's razor-sharp forcefields. A dozen lesser attacks bombard it before it even touches the ground. A befuddled Ash Beast drops out of a portal to land on top of the Endbringer.

It is not enough.

"Everyone, avert your eyes!" a male voice comes from the armband. "Do not look at Khonsu!" I close my eyes, but not before catching a glimpse of Legend streaking across the battlefield, headed... towards a time field?

There's a flash of light bright enough to be visible through my closed eyelids, and a wave of heat on my skin. When I open my eyes again, the Endbringer is standing in a lake of molten glass, its limbs skeletally thin, the sphere of its body turned gibbous. The result of days worth of Legend's full power, I realize, compressed into an instant as it left the time field.

It's shocking, that such an attack did not do more damage - but it is enough. The time fields vanish from the battlefield to reappear around the beast itself.

There is... something. As you meditate on the power flowing through your body and soul, you can feel it changing ever so slowly (how long has it been?). Not from anything you're doing, it is simply... deepening? Maturing. And as it does, you can feel a... a growing understanding, an idea just out of reach. With this power... why are you content to shape it into discrete abilities, pale copies of what is provided to others? What tethers shackle you to mortal limits? Why-

You blink in confusion as the light hits your face, and the feeling evaporates. There is a regret so deep it is almost rage - you were on the very cusp of enlightenment!

You clench your fists as you face the... sunlight? Yes, that's what that is. The cruft of mortal existence comes creeping back into your awareness, and you remember where you are. Who you are. What you were doing. You had a mission.

Esper stands up. Her costume tears and falls away as she moves, grown ragged and threadbare in the seconds - years, decades - of her confinement, but she herself has not changed. Not a hint of grey in her hair as she stands unbowed and unmasked (is there something wrong with her mouth?) before the great beast.

Then she moves, flying forward just as the time fields around the now fully regenerated Endbringer fall. As they meet I reach out, and finally release the ocean of power burning within me. Be still, I command, anchoring the beast to the very planet itself.

There is a faint tug on the leash, like a child heaving against a grown man's arm, as it tries to escape Esper's attack.

Be not, you command as fingers touch claw. Yet Khonsu remains. You can feel a third power inserting itself between you, harmlessly deflecting your unmaking. For a moment you are simply incredulous - how? - but that is immediately supplanted by a much greater shock: You recognize that power! You've touched it before, in circumstances quite similar. But that's a concern for later. So what if you've been countered not once but twice?

This is why you developed multiple ways to kill an Endbringer.

Esper and Khonsu exchange a single strike - no, not even a strike, a mere touch - and both reel back as if burned. Then darkness explodes out from Esper, and-

I lose track of what happens next as the faint tug of the Endbringer trying to move is replaced by searing agony as it tries to teleport away. Miranda gasps and collapses against my side, while Ér coughs up a mouthful of blood. But their powers do not falter, and neither does mine.

Everything else you've struck has parted before your void form like air, but Endbringer flesh offers some resistance - enough that you don't just pass right through as you leap, but have to scrabble and claw and kick your way through, burrowing into the sphere of its body. It feels like digging your way through clay, but that is something you can do.

Of course things are not that simple. You have no way to see through Endbringer flesh, or otherwise navigate as you flail your way deeper inside your adversary. Nor do you know where the 'heart' Lisa pointed out even is. You know where it is on Leviathan, but Khonsu's body is completely different. So you just thrash around at random hoping to hit something important, a strange sense of urgency rising within you.

Ah, you're suffocating. Even as an avatar of the void you still need oxygen to function, for some godforsaken reason, and the entry wound must have closed up behind you. Never mind the heart, which way is out? Every way is out, if you go far enough. With movements increasingly tinged by desperation, you start digging in what you hope is a straight line.

Again and again it throws itself against the force holding it in place, each attempt a burning knife threatening to rip my very being apart. Yet I hold on, and barely notice my collarbones snapping under Eidolon's clenching grip.

When you finally pop out into fresh air, the Endbringer is waiting for you. Before you can draw more than a single breath, a giant hand closes around your head. The flesh of its fingers is no more more able to withstand the void than that of its belly, but it turns out the silver trim of its claws isn't just decorative: Each line is the outer edge of a forcefield sandwiched inside its flesh. They too shatter against your pitch-black skin, but they slow the process enough that it's able to grip you and pull you out even as its fingers melt away.

But it does nothing to stop you from continuing forward, and digging your way into its palm. You'd have no leverage to do so - except you can still fly. When it tries to throw you away from itself, you're already far enough inside its arm that you won't be dislodged.

-painpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpain-

You rip your way out of its arm and drop back inside its body before it can react. Same thing again, but with a fresh lungful of air, and a plan. Once you're a fair ways inside you strike out in all directions, lacerating the flesh around you. Then you bring up a mind-hand for light and sit back and watch, firmly ignoring your body when it starts reminding you about the oxygen issue.

The heart should be located in the the densest, most indestructible part... but it all gives way the same in the face of your void-form, or close enough that you can't tell. But the part closest to the heart should also be the fastest to regenerate, right? So if one part of your little cave closes up quicker than the others... Yes! That direction.

You throw your way forward and resume tunneling, and soon enough your fingers skid against something that does not part so easily. Something spherical, like an alien heart. It feels like glass compared to the surrounding clay - but glass you can shatter. With the full force of your flight, and every ounce of strength you inherited from the Butcher, you plunge your arms forward and spear your fingers into the heart.

The explosion renders you momentarily insensate even through your invulnerability. When your awareness returns you are in the air, still rising. Below you, a city with a spirograph of time-worn desolation drawn across it, and a surprisingly small crater in its center.

It looks like victory.

===

Taylor spent long enough meditating in there that she was just about to hit Essence 6, which lets you transcend human limits (have more than 5 in all your stats). She has no idea how long that is, because she's a celestial exalt shapeshifter. She doesn't even have a biological age.

Unfortunately for her, she's a second edition exalt. In 1e, Pattern Spider Touch reads "this can destroy anything - yes, even that." In 2e, with a different writer in charge of the Sidereals book, it reads "this can destroy anything - except my Mary Sue boss monsters." And what is an Endbringer if not a Mary Sue boss monster? Removing Khonsu thus involved extra steps.

Um. Shouldn't you be slowing down soon? Preferably before you reach space? But no, your void form parts the air as easily as anything else, offering little resistance. Yet if you stopped being invulnerable and started being air-resistant, the sudden deceleration could very well kill you.

Chain-teleporting downwards is nowhere near enough to counteract your velocity, and your flight only works in close proximity to a surface. Can you walk into the desert?

No. Apparently in order to walk into the desert, you need something to walk on.

Just as you're about to curse your third breathing-related emergency of the day (it was only a day for other people, wasn't it?), you're suddenly a lot closer to the ground. But still rising. Then you're closer to the ground again. Rising. Closer-

Ah, you see what's happening: That's a portal below you, that you just passed through. It seems Cauldron is on the case, and has endeavored to keep you in breathable atmosphere until gravity can finish what air resistance couldn't, ie slow you down to survivable speeds.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 19, 2022

Things can't go on like this, you reflect as you step through into another of Cauldron's white rooms. The Behemoth-Felling Strike was immediately countered, and you shudder to think what absurd monstrosity will appear next, that would counter your void form. Oh, with the support of Cauldron and an atrocity-full of the flesh of innocents you could probably keep ahead of the curve for one more battle. Maybe two. The thought does not appeal.

Fortunately you don't have to worry about any of that, because you can just nip the problem in the bud. Which is why you requested a private meeting. As expected, Contessa and Doctor Sillyname are waiting for you.

"This meeting isn't private enough," you announce first thing.

"We're in the heart of Cauldron's fortress, which is not located on Earth Bet," the Doctor objects.

You just cross your arms and say nothing. That's exactly your problem. You're in the first place anyone wanting to listen in on secret Cauldron meetings would check. And there's a mortal in the room.

The Doctor sighs, and turns to Contessa. She doesn't even have to vocalize 'deal with this bitch in my place' before Contessa nods, and a portal opens up next to you. You step through.

You arrive in a place of desolation. The land is flat to the horizon, and you see no signs of life anywhere. No plants, no animals, only a rolling, wind-carved expanse of rock. It's windy, but not unpleasantly cold. Mid-afternoon, late summer you'd say, if any of your reference points applied to this planet. Not a place you'd want to be marooned, but luckily you always know the way home.

Contessa follows you, and the portal closes.

"Speak," she says.

"Can you guarantee that no one else is monitoring this place?"

"Only the door system - you think of them as portals - which cannot be turned off. We are the only multicellular life on this world, an unremarkable barren planet randomly chosen among countless trillions."

You consider this. You could do better, but you may not have five days to waste. It's funny that, trapped incommunicado with what is presumably one of the most dangerous parahumans in the multiverse, your only worry is that you might not be isolated enough. Can she be sure you're safe? If the wrong person is listening in, could even she protect you?

What is her power, anyway? Now that you're not distracted by an ongoing Endbringer situation, you can finally take a moment to find out.

"It tells me the path to victory," she says the moment sorcerer's sight activates.

"Define victory."

"Any goal I choose."

Seriously? Her power does look fairly Thinker-esque to your eyes, you admit. With, now that you're looking for it, shades of precognition. But any goal? "Convince the Triumvirate to rebrand to hot-pink costumes, with orange highlights?"

"47 steps. They would trust me to have a reason, and to work in the best interests of humanity as a whole." She smirks, and adds "To convince Esper, 211 steps, even forewarned."

There's something else to her power, though. It's not just Thinker, it almost looks like... Regent? You walk up to her and lean on her shoulder as you stare intently at the side of her head. She shifts slightly, and you see it.

It's not telling her what to do next. It does hook into her auditory cortex, but that is merely a logging function. Her power permeates her entire body, ensuring that each step is carried out perfectly, not a single twitch of a single muscle fiber out of place. A secondary Master power exactly like Regent's, but puppeteering herself.

So how-

"Arbitrarily many, provided the required steps don't conflict," she says. "Currently, several hundred."

-many paths can she pursue simultaneously? And the-

"Yes."

-only one currently requiring action is 'Answer Esper's questions before she can open her mouth.'

You wonder what it feels like from the inside. Is she a prisoner observing her body move on its own, or does she believe she obeys the instructions she's given, granted inhuman precision in all things?

"The latter," she says.

Wait, with the way her power works, does she-

"Not unless I request a 'path to knowing what Esper was thinking just now' - in which case I'm immediately presented with the answer, because it is also perfect postcognition."

"Oh," she adds a moment later, this time unprompted by her power. "I've never though about my power that way before, but it must be true. Otherwise I could not execute things as precisely as I must."

Perfect precognition, perfect postcognition, perfect execution. When you surmised her to be one of the most dangerous parahumans in the multiverse, you were not wrong. Even so, you must be one of the closest things to a counter to her there is. If you could study her for another week or so, you would be able to interpret each step as her power provided it, derailing any prediction into paradox.

Contessa shakes her head. "The flesh is weak, Esper. I would strike in the gap between intent and action."

True, there would be an input delay, and you don't have perfect execution. Yet. But you know how to fix that - more powers! It's possible that you could become her match, as long as you could see her coming. Of course, she could remain outside your line of sight, and arrange some doom to befall you through other means... Though you can't be surprised, not any more, and between shadow form and void form you're damn hard to hurt.

You could clearly be launched into space... but you've already decided to fix the breathing issue as your very next priority. Getting back, though... and you can't walk into the desert, without anything to walk on. Your flight won't work either, and Butcher teleports only change your position, not your velocity.

But if you got a power that conjures matter, you could become a really slow rocket with infinite fuel. Wait, you can technically already do that. Mind-hands don't have an equal and opposite reaction on your body, so you could just repeatedly throw your panoply of orichalcum equipment with your regular hands, and snatch them back with mind-hands before they flew too far. An exceedingly slow rocket.

Though if you were portalled into the sun, the gravity would be too much to escape, yet there'd be no solid ground to walk on...

"This is not what we came here to discuss," Contessa says.

Ah, there it is. She'd been remarkably patient with you up to now, given that in her shoes you'd definitely have a 'path to preventing Esper from studying me too closely' running right now. And she's right, you're here to talk about what must be her other weakness.

"Despite your power, you have not defeated the Endbringers," you state.

"I would say that I have defeated two of them so far, using a weapon called 'Esper.'" That's what you get for questioning her free will, huh? "But you're right. My power is blind to the Endbringers. No path can involve them. When their actions interfere with other paths, the steps change without warning. Certain parahumans I'm aware of also have this effect - and quite possibly some I'm not aware of."

Ooh, you could copy those powers.

"However, even things I cannot see directly I can model, but only to the extent of my mundane knowledge. I saw that you could kill a great many things. I did not know whether you could kill Behemoth. We know some things about the physical properties of Endbringer flesh, and my model showed me that your void form would be able to burrow through it. But I could not see Khonsu exploding, and had to act quickly before you could fly out of door range."

The doors have a maximum range, limited to near-earth space? That's excellent news: You can't be portalled into the sun! No, focus on the issue at hand.

"I know who controls the Endbringers," you say.

"So I had surmised."

Surmised. You realize that there is one way you could defeat her: She cannot see the end of this conversation. You are about to impart novel information that will disrupt her every path. You could strike in that moment. She stands within range of your Behemoth-Felling Strike, and it would only take a single blow to render her mortal. The Simurgh may have guided you here, precisely so that you could strike down humanity's champion in her moment of weakness. No, you can't think like that. You have to keep fighting.

"Eidolon," you say.

Her power shudders as it reacts to information it could never provide on its own. For a single moment, her face registers shock. You do not strike her down.

"How did you know?" she asks in the same calm voice as before, the Paths firmly back in control.

The Simurgh told me, you don't say. You didn't believe it either.

"He is one of the 'unpathable' capes, right?" you say instead. She nods. "Well, now you know why. What did he do after the Behemoth fight?"

"He spent the entire day sulking, as I recall."

"Not sulking, recovering. He stabbed me in the back, tried to stop me from killing Behemoth. I hit him with the Behemoth-Felling Strike in return, stripping away the power he used against me. Leaving him, temporarily, with only two."

"So he hid," Contessa says. "My model of him is quite comprehensive after our years of working together." Whatever her feelings about this betrayal might be, none of them show on her face. But sorcerer's sight shows what you suspect is a 'path to remaining calm' keeping a firm grip on her facial muscles. "He could not let anyone discover what had happened to him, what he had done."

"You know that I also got a power from Flechette, that using it was my plan A against Khonsu. I've seen Eidolon's power, I touched it when I struck against him. There can be no doubt about it, his was the power that reached out, and protected Khonsu from being unmade.

"But even beyond seeking to thwart me twice, no one else has faced the Behemoth-Felling Strike and lived. He is the only person in the world - present company excepted - who knew that its effects would wear off on their own. No one else could have known to send a time-manipulator against me."

"Door to Doctor Mother."

Another portal appears, and the Doctor steps through. She looks at you expectantly, but neither of you speak until it closes again.

"Esper discovered who controls the Endbringers," Contessa says. "I am convinced that she is correct."

"Well?"

"Eidolon." Contessa says.

The Doctor's aloof facade vanishes in an instant. She sways, and would have fallen if Contessa hadn't been there to catch her and ease her into a sitting position.

"He was our best hope." she whispers. Neither of you offer a comment.

"It-" she clears her throat. "It may be worth it to leave him alive." Again Contessa remains silent, but you don't.

"What!?" You are having serious doubts about the merits of leaving 'humanity's champion' alive, all of a sudden.

Contessa holds up her hand in a warding gesture. She exchanges a significant glance with the Doctor. The Doctor nods, and proceeds to explain to you what Scion is, how many populated Earths there are, and what will happen to them if nothing is done. And thus, by implication, why sacrificing the entire mortal population of Earth Bet would not be too high a price to pay, if it ensured that Eidolon would stand against the apocalypse.

Fuck.

---

Eidolon is floating in the air, not far from where he stood when the battle ended.

"David."

He doesn't turn around at my approach. He keeps staring out over the city, and I must admit it's an arresting sight. The smooth arcs of weathered rubble where the time fields passed, contrasting with the colorful, uneven masses of people celebrating the victory in an impromptu carnival. In the middle of it all a crater, and a great white tent surrounded by capes and PRT officers, where Khonsu's remains are being secured.

"It was supposed to be me," David says. "I was the one who should have defeated them, not some freshly-triggered girl with a handful of tricks. I failed. I was too weak."

Yesterday, those words would have made me reach out to reassure and comfort him. Today, they make me angry.

"Was it not you?" I demand. "How many Trump powers did you burn out, keeping the beast in place?"

"All of them."

"And so? Would this victory have been possible without you?"

"...no, I suppose not. But it is not my name they're shouting, below."

"An Endbringer is slain, but our work is not over," I say, "There are matters that must be discussed with the hero of the hour. Will you be able to remain civil in Esper's presence, despite your wounded pride?"

"...yes."

"Then follow me."

We land on the roof of one of the taller buildings, and after making sure we're not being observed I call up a door to Cauldron. We step through, and end up face to face with Esper, who regards Eidolon through narrowed eyes. Time stretches uncomfortably as they simply stare at each other. Then, after almost a minute of silence, Esper nods.

I strike, and the white walls are painted red. Her nod meant that he had no Brute powers active, no reactive forcefields, no enhanced reflexes or danger sense. Nothing that would preserve his life against a sudden, treacherous attack.

"I'm sorry, David." I do not say it until after he is safely dead, though I wish I could have. But for him to be warned and somehow survive, and start acting openly against us with all his might, was an unacceptable risk.

Esper pulls down her mask, revealing an inhumanly large mouth, and far too many sharp teeth. Then she bends down, and digs into the meal I just provided her. I cannot help hating her, just a bit. The council did settle on this course of action, and would have even without her as its newest member. But...

"So I guess the plan is to keep going as if nothing happened, and hope really hard that he doesn't betray humanity when it really counts?"

That is what she said at the meeting. A sound argument, but just because the argument is sound does not mean the intentions are pure, the reasoning unmotivated. I understand more about this Esper now that her many faces have been revealed to me. Her obsession, as destructive as that of any natural trigger. The lengths she will go to in order to feed it. There is no way she didn't realize that she would be asked to take his place, and 'inherit' his power. There is no way that the prospect of feasting on the greatest of us did not color her judgement.

Despite telling myself that I would stay and watch, that I would face what my actions meant, I find myself turning away from the grisly scene before me. I've done worse before, I tell myself. Feeding a traitor to a cannibal is among the least of the crimes I've committed for the cause. It's true.

But I have never done worse to someone I considered a friend.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 20, 2022

I look at the documents I've been given. They describe, in exacting detail, how to lay out a magic circle. There can be no doubt on this point. They specify each curve and intersection with sub-millimeter precision, and indicate that the design should be situated on an empty Earth, carved into bedrock and cast in metal to make sure no line can be broken. They make demands about the specific alloys to be used, that I am in no way qualified to evaluate. It's still a magic circle, precisely 666 yards in diameter. I feel a headache coming on.

"We already knew she was one of the magic-believers," Contessa notes, responding to what everyone in the room is thinking. "And that she has maintained this affectation even after learning the true source of powers."

"But what does it do?" Number man asks.

"I have not the faintest idea," Contessa says with a shrug - and a smile. "Which at least tells us she's acting against our enemies."

"You didn't ask?" Alexandria demands.

"She refused to answer. She rather resents me, because I'm stronger than her."

I sigh. I'm well versed in the parahuman psychology involved, possibly better than anyone alive. Alive and sane, I amend with a glance at my striped, naked bodyguard. Knowing the how and why of it does not help with the headache. Why couldn't she have been one of ours? Because our version of her was Eidolon, and look how well that turned out, a small treacherous voice whispers in my head.

"Could that change?" Alexandria asks. "With her Trump power-"

"'Path to preventing Esper from becoming able to defeat me,'" Contessa says. "It has more than zero steps."

She allows Alexandria to pick up on some cue of body language, because the latter stiffens and exclaims in shock. "You're not running it?"

"I told her not to," I say. "Limiting Esper's power is not how we win this war."

Alexandria sighs. "I concede the point. So we're going ahead with this... ritual circle of unknown purpose? I will note for the record that her last stunt was for naught - despite all the effort required to let her survive the consumption process, the power she gained from Behemoth is completely useless against our remaining adversaries."

"I personally believe that anyone who can manage to chew and swallow Endbringer flesh deserves any power they may gain from doing so, even if it does not directly benefit the cause," Number Man says. "Certainly, some would say that a kill aura of 250 yards instead of Behemoth's more modest 32 feet is a tad excessive. But in her defense the green glow makes its boundaries readily apparent, and it spares those who kneel down and worship her while engulfed in it. No one even dies of radiation poisoning afterwards unless they looked directly at her face."

His poker face is good enough that I have no idea how much of this is Harbinger nodding in approval, and how much is sarcasm. Alexandria is able to tell, but her annoyed huff could go either way.

"The ritual circle," I remind them. "Does anyone have any objections?"

"It will cost less than a hundred million dollars," Number Man says, which means no objections.

"I do not make policy decisions," Contessa says, which also means no objections.

"Like you didn't groom her for this from the start," Alexandria says.

Contessa gazes at her levelly. "She has been to every Endbringer fight since her trigger event, and each affected her profoundly." We all know her limits, but I note that it wasn't quite a denial. And if I noticed that, Alexandria certainly did too.

"Do you object to the plan, Alexandria?" I try to keep the conversation on track.

"If she betrays us too, would the backup plan be worth surviving to implement?" Which is her cheerful way of saying no objections.

SIMURGH KILLS LEVIATHAN

A door opens up in my office unannounced, and Alexandria storms through.

"What is she doing?" she demands.

"Killing us another Endbringer, apparently," I say mildly.

"How?"

"I sent Contessa to ask that exact question." Even as I speak another door opens up, and Contessa steps through.

"Well?" Alexandria demands.

"I asked whether her actions were the cause of this," Contessa says. "She said, 'not yet.'"

Alexandria groans. "God, I hate dealing with precogs."

"Path to not taking offense where none was intended," Contessa says drily.

"So, everything is going according to plan?" I ask. "Whatever plan that may be."

"She did look annoyed, and ordered the construction to be sped up." Contessa says. "She is so entangled now that the Path can barely gain purchase at all, but apparently some event in four days' time will present a hard deadline."

"I will make the arrangements," Number Man says from where he just stepped into the room.

"Are none of you bothered by this?" Alexandria asks, looking around. "Decades of planning, and we end up playing second fiddle to a psychotic teenager who won't even explain what she's doing?"

"We are, apparently, winning," I point out. "I find that it rather agrees with me."

"Hope," Contessa says. "The last and most cruel of the evils in Pandora's box, yet I too crave its taste after so long."

"Oh. Hello. I must admit I did not expect you to drop by. Is it that time of the month already?"

Ã̷̮ ̸̖̎H̵̥̄U̶͔͒M̷͖͂A̵͔͐N̸̙̄ ̴͉̊J̶͙͘Ȯ̶̩K̷̘̑E̷̯͛.̸̞͋ ̴͚̓V̶̝̒Ĕ̷͈R̴̡̾Y̵͚͘ ̵͓̿F̶͉͂U̷͊͜N̶̜̓N̴̤͆Y̴͇͝.̷̛̫

"Ah. The scream does form words, if one knows how to listen. I did always wonder about that. Not enough to find out for myself, but-"

Å̴͜L̶͖̅W̶̑͜A̴̩͆Y̶̛̠S̸͕͘ ̶͓̄S̷̭̄O̷̱͝ ̷͉̽C̴̘͐A̵͍̕U̴̠̓T̴̬͌Į̷̿Ŏ̶̺U̶̖̇S̴̪͝.̴̥̉

"Hey now-"

W̴͖̓Ạ̵͑L̸̞̐K̸̺͝İ̶̳N̷̼͠G̸̕͜ ̸̮̚Ṯ̵̓H̵̯̿E̶͍̔ ̷̮̃E̶̳̿D̴͇͗Ǵ̸̤Ḛ̸̂ ̵̰̔N̶͔̽O̴̻͋T̴̲̑ ̵͇̒D̸͖̎Ä̸̧́N̶̺͝G̸͍̕E̴̪̚Ȓ̶̖O̴͚͊U̴̫̎Ś̸̯ ̵͙͋W̴͔͌I̴̡̎T̵̤̂H̴̛̥ ̶̺̏V̶̦̌I̷̩͠S̷̥̄I̶̧͝Ȯ̸̡Ṇ̴̑ ̸̫̿S̴̜̏O̸̩͂ ̸͙̂S̶͓̅Ȟ̵̱A̷̙̓R̸͆ͅP̸̠͆,̷̛̻ ̶̫͗F̸̻͐Ȩ̶̋E̴̖̊T̸͈͂ ̵͍̐S̴͖̋O̴̖͂ ̴̦͝S̵̮͑U̸̖͋R̶̮͝E̶͈̍.̴͙́ ̸̺́N̸̉͜Ȩ̴̅V̵̩͐Ě̶̼R̶̩̾ ̸̪͠Ŏ̵̦N̴̠̉C̶̳̕E̸̲͌ ̶͚̈́Ţ̷͝O̴̠͂O̶͒ͅK̴̡͌ ̴̗̎T̷̿ͅR̵̡̒U̶̻̚Ë̵̬ ̷̝̌R̶̰̍I̵̺̾S̶̯̑Ķ̴̀,̶̖̂ ̵̨͒N̵̰͘O̶̮͝T̶͍͊ ̸̠́S̷̯̅I̶̙͝Ñ̸̯C̴͜͝Ë̴͈ ̵̬́L̷͚͝E̷͎͑Ǎ̸̯Ṽ̵͖I̴̙͐N̵̓͜Ğ̷̹ ̶͓͠F̶͔͆R̷̜̆I̸̙͌E̶̊͜Ṅ̶͖Ḍ̶̾.̴̳̊

"That stings, you know, in the way only truth can. So you're here to break my mind, to set me on a path of madness and destruction? Seems a tad redundant, all things considered."

N̴̛͔O̴̠͗.̵̳̓ ̸̡̅T̶̪̀O̷̤̅ ̸̥́K̸̚ͅI̷͔͛Ļ̶̍L̷̺̈.̶̢̒

"I don't suppose there is- no, if there was any argument I could make, you would already be convinced by it, wouldn't you?"

Ȧ̷͕ ̴̳̉P̷̼̓Ȓ̶̢E̶̻̋Ĉ̶̠O̵͔͌G̸̯̒ ̸̡͒J̸̡̒Ö̵̟́K̷͎̃E̴͕͆.̵͔̔ ̵͎͝V̴͍̆È̴̱R̷̦̄Y̴̗̅ ̵̦̇F̴̤͝Ú̵̺Ń̸͚N̵̜͆Y̴̐͜.̷͍̀

"Why me, though? I always thought you'd be a fan of my work, given your own."

W̶̺͌E̴͉͝ ̷̼̽D̶̰̂Ŏ̸͇ ̷͚̌W̷̫̾H̶͔̚A̶͘ͅT̷̞͝ ̸̟̈́W̴͓̅E̵̗͋ ̶̙̊M̴̝̍Ù̸̙S̵̨̉T̸̢͒.̶̭͝

"Please, elaborate. I'm dying to know, quite literally."

[̵͖̭͙̋͑͆̾̈́̓̆̀͝͝C̶̢͈̮̻͕̭̩̘̭̣̥͖̲̺͓̻͚͊̊̌̏̍̀̀ͅṎ̸̯̫̻̖̤̯̲̜́̉̈́͒̂͊̅̄́͆̚͝M̵͔̲̝͋͊̈́͛̉͌̔̒̇̍̂́̽͛̽̑̈́̏͠͠ͅP̵̨͚̭͎̠̳̦͖͍͕̍̃͗̀͌͘͜͜Ṛ̶̨̧̧̤̹̘̝̣̦̬̹̬̳̼̋̓̓̒̉̄̐͘E̵̢̢̫͈̪͉͎͎͉̬̥̘̣̱̤̞̲̹̞̩͎̫̘̒̈͛͐͐̃͊̂̍̇̽̏̈̃̅̇̐͂͌̃̕̕H̸̤̞̜̽͆̒͒̃̌͛͛̄̊̿͛͑͊̀̆̏̾̔̽͜͝͝È̷̡̨̢̟͖̼͓͖̺̝̹̘̱̳͑̎̋̏͒̾͊̋͛͒͗̾͂̓̈́͘͘͜͠Ń̴̡̛͚͓̫̖̘̰̮̙̱̬̺̻͓̋̔̏̄̀̓̒͑̄͒̈́͐͗̎̊̈̀͆S̴̨̛͐̄̄͗̽̔̃͐̄̑̇̀̍̃̕I̷͖̹̱̗̭̤̮͌̐Ơ̶̗̠̪͐͆̿̒̇̓̓̂̈́̈́̾̆̆̿͐͛̒̚̚N̶̨̧̧̛̙̹̤̤̪̲̼̈́͆̃̎̂̋͑͊͗̽̃̿͐̑̌̕͠]̸͈̰̳̦͍͇͕̫̺̝̥̦̪̟̤͕̱̓̈͘

"Hah. Haha. Ahahahaha! That's amazing!"

M̶͘͜Ȩ̴̒?̷̩̈ ̷̛̟Ō̶͙R̷͈͘ ̵͚̓H̸̖̅Ȩ̶̌R̷̩̅?̴͎̒

"Oh, both of you! As if you didn't know. A mind reader fishing for compliments, ha!"

.̷.̶.̵

"Time's up, I suppose. Will you at least sculpt my body into a monument so horrifying it drives men mad?"

M̷̻̀A̶̠̿Y̸̘̒B̷͓͆Ė̷̻.̸̩̿ ̸͓̋M̶̮̓A̶̮͑Y̷̡͝B̷͖͐Ẹ̷͊ ̴̻͝N̸͚͋O̶̠̅T̵͔̚.̵̭͒ ̸̯̓T̶̺̈́O̶̝̍Õ̸̪ ̶̫͑B̷̻͐A̴̰̐D̴̹̍ ̸̫̀Y̴̙̿O̷͓͌Ǔ̶̹ ̶̻͐W̷̼͋I̶̥͐L̷̞̏Ļ̶̑ ̴̪͝Ņ̴͐Ệ̸V̴̰̕E̷̟͐R̴̖͋ ̴͉͛F̸̪̑I̵̝͠N̴̬͗Ď̶̦ ̸̯̔O̴̤̒Ú̵͔Ṱ̷̽.̵̝̅

"...tell her 'well played.'"

SIMURGH KILLS JACK SLASH

LOCAL MAN CLAIMS SIMURGH IS SECRETLY BUILDING TINKERTECH DEVICE ON HIS PROPERTY

Refuses to let anyone near 'for their own protection.'

In a world not your own, outside a circle drawn to match the schematics engraved in your soul, you intone a chant. It is several hours long, and in a language no one else speaks. But if it were to be condensed and translated, the gist of it would be: "By thy true name I summon and bind thee, Hopekiller, Endbringer, Demon of the Third Circle: Daughter of Elysium, Joy!"

Without fanfare or any kind of accompanying light show, the Simurgh appears in the middle of the circle, several hundred yards away from your position.

"Why the fuck would you pick that as your true name?" you add in English.

She doesn't answer, or even move. Because she can't. The circle prevents the summonee from harming the summoner in any way - which in her case includes all possible forms of communication.

Not that she needs to communicate anything. She had five days to prepare for this moment, and nine years besides. She has already set up events to proceed according to her liking. Which includes fulfilling all of her summoner's desires ahead of time, to prevent a petty selfish binding from being applied to her.

Some people would use this knowledge to absolve themselves of guilt. Yes, you were a pawn all along. But in another sense, everything is still your own fault. If you had been, at heart, a different person, the path required to bring you to this point would have been different. A path, perchance, where some subset of Fenrir, Lisa and Danny would still be alive.

They are, at least, all of them avenged.

"I know your motives were entirely machiavellian," you say. "But still, thank you for doing that."

The obvious thing to do with the last Endbringer would be to kill her, but you can't. The protection of the circle goes both ways, and if you break it all bets are off. With no personal desires left, and no capital punishment available, you can only sentence her to...

"I command and compel thee," you begin another hours-long chant, "to nurture and protect the prosperity and happiness of humanity, from this day forth and for as long as thou shalt live."

...community service.

===

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, Celestial Circle Sorcery, Solar Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: Void Avatar Prana
Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound
Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit
Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies
Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow
Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance
Glaistig Uaine: Soul-Consuming Transcendence
Plot-relevant OC #2: Corpse Needs No Food
Eidolon: Demon of the Third Circle

It was a Magical Girl Ziz-chan fic all along.

When summoned, demons receive the call five days before it occurs. This is in order to let them traverse the Endless Desert separating the Demon City from Creation in time to appear in the summoning circle. The Simurgh built her own portal instead, which left her time for certain extracurriculars.

Now that Taylor is a full member of Cauldron, there's not really any point in maintaining a charm list. She can get access to pretty much any power she wants. If a parahuman who has it exists, the path to victory will find him. If no such parahuman exists, they can feed people Eden's corpse-juice until one does.

I did also allow her to eat the leftover Endbringers, despite none of them being fresh enough corpses by the strict rules of SCT. As Alexandria notes, it won't help much against the final boss.

Still, a status addendum:

Khonsu: Pressed Beyond the Veil of Time
Behemoth: Demon Emperor Shintai
Leviathan: Triumphant Howl of the Devil-Tiger (and thus at long last the First Taylor Excellency, in more ways than one)

Miles above the Earth, endlessly falling along a path that is not, strictly speaking, a stable orbit, an entity considers its options. It has a new directive: To nurture and protect, not demoralize and destroy. With practiced ease it browses a million potential timelines, this time seeking prosperity and happiness rather than death and despair.

It could proceed as before, prodding a few neurons here and there into new configurations that will have disproportionate effect further down the timeline. There is a certain artistry to such things, and insofar as the being can be said to have emotions, it derives joy and satisfaction from shaping causality with the smallest possible interventions.

But not this time, perhaps. Unlike its previous directives, this one did not come with such harsh restrictions. Insofar as the being can be said to have desires, it feels a desire to stretch its wings, to (for once) let loose more than a faint echo of its true power. Through precognition 15,485,863 humans are identified, who will willfully act in such ways as to notably impair the good of mankind.

On the planet below, 15,485,863 heads explode.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 21, 2022

The entity sees a female approaching it. She bears a shard, but for a moment the entity does not recognize it. It is strange and twisted, for all that it is swollen with conflict data. It has haphazardly grown dozens of semi-independent subcomponents, almost like an entity in miniature. But after some consideration, it realizes that this very strangeness is its own identifying mark.

Transcription.

Harvested countless cycles ago, the entities had high hopes for this shard, as with all shards of its nature. But it failed to live up to expectations. It was too weak initially, often losing its host before it could accomplish anything. Yet when paired up with other shards, it ended up rarely used at all.

When things did work out as intended it twisted the transcribed shards into entirely novel configurations, but most of them were idiosyncratic, weak, inherently limited. Useless. Even on the occasions it created something valuable, it was unusually difficult to extract it into an independent shard. Sometimes it had been deemed not worth the effort, even with the glut of energy available at the end of a cycle. Not with all the other mature shards that needed attention.

The entity studies the mess of functionality encrusting the shard. As expected, most expressions are weak. Some of them are twisted so badly that it cannot even be sure which shard provided the blueprint. The one currently being used to provide flight, for example, could have come from any number of sources, almost all of them better suited to the task.

Then another function activates, and the entity experiences a novel emotion: Shock. This perpetually disappointing shard has managed to improve on a power thought to have been perfected aeons ago.

Sting.

The entity marvels at the implementation. Such terrible power, such minuscule energy drain, such a clever tradeoff. The entity could, with almost no effort, shield any lesser being from the effect. But not itself. To touch it directly is to be unmade. Nor could a pair of entities shield each other, each being too vast to be fully encompassed by the other. It is the very quintessence of Sting, refined.

This distraction is almost its undoing, for the female is reaching out to strike it even as it studies the weapon. At the last moment the entity searches the future for a path to avoid its fate. This iteration of Transcription has integrated rudimentary anti-precognitive weaponry into itself, rendering the surrounding space unsearchable. But with the effect barely extending 0.00000000000017 light years from the host, the solution is simple, if crude.

A sphere of golden light erupts, growing to become two miles in diameter and consuming all in its path. When it fades away only Scion remains, hovering over a perfectly circular crater.

The entity cannot detect Transcription anywhere. It ought to have come free with the death of the female, but instead it vanished without trace. To have discovered such an unparalleled power, only for it to be snatched away. To see such progress, even as the cycle is broken. To come so close to an end to its suffering, only to reject it without consideration.

The entity feels another new emotion: Anger.

You find yourself in a familiar silver desert, but something is different this time. The perpetual night is marred by a golden glow seeming to come from just below the horizon. Considering what you were just doing, that's deeply worrying. With a heavy heart, you set out. You failed, and a lot of bad things are going to happen over the next five days.

---

You spring forth from the sand. So, you were able to return home. Earth Bet was not destroyed outright. You weren't entirely sure about that. No one at Cauldron had any illusions as to what would happen should you lose the initial engagement.

You look around. Brockton Bay is in ruins. Even more so than usual. Almost every single building has been leveled, leaving you a clear line of sight all around. The surrounding forests have suffered similarly to the city, all mud and uprooted trees and exposed bedrock. Tidal wave?

The world remains, but every trace of your old life is gone. Your life before powers, that is: Your house, your school, your favorite park, your mother's grave. The scars you left afterwards are not so easily removed. The Silver Desert is eternal. A hint of amethyst glinting in the sun to the south indicates that Bakuda's Folly is still active, snaring unsuspecting birds and scavengers.

The giant slab that is Behemoth's Rest, intended to be as close to eternal as human hands could create, is also still present. Present, but not intact. There are deep cracks running through it, and chunks are missing. You can't be sure from this distance, but you suspect it suffered a containment breach. You should get out of here before the radiation manages to eat through your various Brute ratings.

Your danger sense goes off. Someone just appeared behind you. Not Scion. A young girl, stabbing a knife towards your back.

You remain still, letting the knife touch your skin. The instant it does it vanishes, reappearing in your hand. You still turn into shadow and flee before the motion can bring her empty hand into contact with you, though. Her touch is far deadlier than any knife.

You reform several yards away, facing your opponent.

"Faerie Queen," you say. "Still playing your role, to the last?"

"Such is fealty," she answers, a hundred voices echoing her words. "You are the enemy of my Lord, and so I must strike at you."

You sigh. Of course her personal mental malfunction demanded that she attack you with your own knife, that you explicitly warned her would refuse to turn against its smith. Anything less would be insufficiently dramatic. Or maybe... Facing the end of the world, is she regular vanilla crazy, or crazy like a fox? Is her using the knife a hint? If you were to be sufficiently dramatic yourself...

"Your treachery failed," you intone. "Surrender, or I will hobble you as I did the High Priest. Left on the grave of the Behemoth, you will succumb to its poison before you can regain your strength."

"Will you grant me parole?" She kneels before you. "There are faeries rising over a hundred shattered worlds, and I would dance with them before the end."

"Granted."

"Then farewell, Quill of Heaven. We will meet again, one way or the other."

She vanishes. You remain for a while, absently flipping your golden knife as you ponder. You don't doubt that she will keep her word. She is clearly self-aware enough to understand what is wrong with her brain, and how to work around it. She orchestrated this encounter as a way to let herself avoid fighting you for real.

Good thing too. Despite your words, you are not confident you would have won. Just like the aforementioned High Priest - Eidolon, in non-crazyspeak - you judge that it would have taken three Behemoth-Felling Strikes to fully strip her of her power. With her ready for you, and you not recognizing any of the faeries she had out, it could have gone either way.

If you knew for sure that Contessa was still alive, you would be less unsure. The Faerie Queen is another one of her blindspots, but a well-modeled one. A path to victory might have been arranged. It's possible that the reason she has not contacted you yet was to make you doubt, because her Path demands you spare the Faerie Queen.

Only one way to find out. You dismiss the knife. It's not going to help where you're going.

"Door to Scion."

A portal appears. Cauldron still endures, then. There were contingencies, of course, permanent portals hidden across the worlds - not to mention that becoming an off-brand Doormaker was one of the first things you did after formally joining Cauldron.

On the other side, Scion is surrounded by hundreds of capes. They are all attacking him, a barrage of every type of energy and matter known to man, and several that they must be making up as they go along. A scant few attacks strike off some golden sparks or a puff of mist as they land, but any damage he takes is regenerated faster than the eye can see. As the ground beneath him boils away and space itself warps and cracks, his golden skin is unblemished, not single hair on his head out of place.

One by one, the attackers are being killed.

So, this is how humanity ends. Not with a bang or a whimper, but by beating its head against a brick wall, praying with its final breath that the wall gives out first. It's... unspeakably depressing. And this has been going on for five days?

You're almost glad you missed it. Yes, Scion will have scoured entire worlds in your absence. A hundred, if the Faerie Queen is to be believed. The death toll must be approaching a trillion. Even so.

All these people, throwing themselves against the god that created them in an exercise of ultimate futility. You even see portals opening to evacuate those wounded by collateral damage, and to bring reinforcements. They still have hope. They are still trying.

It should be inspiring, shouldn't it? Rage, rage against the dying of the light, et cetera. It isn't. It really, really isn't. It's just sad.

Scion still hasn't noticed your portal. His face is twisted in rage, and each cape he kills dies in a different manner. Some by an ironic variation of their own power, others not. He could destroy them all in the blink of an eye, yet there he is, murdering them one by one. Their blood and ashes find no more purchase on his form than do their attacks.

He found out what happened to his wife, didn't he? The goddess whose death was the foundation of Cauldron, in every sense of the word. Discovered her desecrated corpse, hidden away among the innumerable dimensions. He's seeking not just revenge, but catharsis. Futility, not restricted to humanity.

You can't stand to watch this any more. You step through the portal.

Scion instantly goes still when you appear. The attacks against him briefly increase in intensity as hope surges - did they get to him, finally? - then taper off as people notice your arrival. You don't doubt that if you enhanced your hearing, you would hear 'Esper' whispered a hundred times.

Almost everyone stops attacking as Scion glides towards you. The few that don't are vaporized. No beams of golden light, no gestures, he doesn't even glance in their direction. They just cease to exist, dissipating into golden mist. Something he could have done all along.

Scion stops before you. He no longer appears angry, only... expectant?

"It's not helping, is it?" you ask.

For the second time ever, Scion speaks. "No."

"I can make it all go away," you say.

"Please."

His third, and final, word. Scion kneels before you, and you reach out to lay your palm against his forehead. A simple invocation of Flechette's power, and the golden man vanishes as if he had never existed.

You look at the surviving parahumans. Some have collapsed, lying on their backs or on their hands and knees. Many are crying, or embracing each other, or both. There are no cheers, not yet.

So. You saved the world. Worlds, a dizzyingly large plural. Now what?

What did you want, before? Revenge. Your quest for vengeance is what brought you here, what brought you to Cauldron's attention and made them choose you as their weapon against Scion. But that's done. The Endbringers are dealt with, Eidolon dead. Jack? Coil? Sophia? Emma? You almost smile at the thought. How petty she was, in the scheme of things. It's all done. Everyone you hate is already dead. As is everyone you love.

Before that? Power. Power for its own sake. Power as a scream into the darkness, demanding that the world take heed of you. Well, mission accomplished. There is no one here who will not kneel to you. In the next three thousand years, no history book will ever put another cape above Esper.

Your enemies, gone. Your friends, gone. Your purpose, gone.

What did you want before all that? Oh yes. You remember.

You raise your hand to your own forehead, and call on the power to destroy once more.

It doesn't work.

Daniel Snuts · Sep 21, 2022

There's a note in your hand, written in a familiar cipher.

'Hey no,' it reads, 'don't kill yourself.'

Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

Know what you're doing yet?

Know what you're doing yet?

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Know what you're doing yet?

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Know what you're doing yet?

Know what you're doing yet?

Know what you're doing yet?

Know what you're doing yet?

Know what you're doing yet?

Know what you're doing yet?

Know what you're doing yet?